A Sinister Past and a Promising Future
by TheOrangeTurtle
Summary: Being offered a spot on the X-Men on his thirteenth birthday was the last thing Nolan Belmont saw coming, neither was learning that his family's past includes a powerful mutant constantly against the X-Men. Then again, when has the past ever helped? The past may be out of Nolan's control, but his future will be, even if he has to die trying. Updates Thursdays.
1. Sinister Origins

**Hello there. My name is TheOrangeTurtle (Obviously), and if you're reading this then you took the time to read my story, or at least skim through it, so thank you, from the bottom of my heart. If you know who I am or looked at my profile you know I have many unfinished stories, and there is no excuse for that, but this one, I hope to complete, after all, the X-Men are my favorite superhero team of all time, there'll be more at the end, for now, enjoy the story!**

* * *

**Sinister Origins**

Mutants. Homo Superior. Muties. Freaks. No one really knows how we came about, there are theories of course, but no definitive answer. I never understood the hate that mutants received, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four are praised, loved, while we are hated, feared, killed, and we've been saving the world far longer than any current superhero team to date. The hate we receive from the humans is something I want gone, and the X-Men fight for that, so that's why I joined, granted I'm not sure if it was all planned from the start or if I actually had a choice.

My name is Nolan Belmont, I am an Omega-class mutant, superhero, X-Man, a pure, unadulterated badass, husband, and most importantly: a father. But you want to know how I got here, let's go back to the beginning, shall we?

**Fifteen Years Ago**

God, I hate middle school. At this point in life things get weird, girls don't have cooties anymore, your voice cracks more than eggshells, and the dark side of the internet looks really intriguing, if you know what I mean. Oh, right, back to school, I attend the illustrious Midtown Middle School, it's a part of the Midtown line, as people call it, you start at Midtown Elementary and go up, all the way to Midtown High.

It's pretty much your stereotypical school experience, jocks, nerds, emo kids, popular kids, bratty girls, geeks, and the average kids, etc. I'm average. My friends include nerdy as all hell Peter Parker, rich as all hell Harry Osborn, and hot as all hell Gwen Stacy. I'm cool as all hell; in case you were wondering (Hey, it's possible to be average and cool).

My three friends had been together since like the fifth grade I just joined a month into the school year, it is now November, my birthday's coming up in a few days, November 11th. It was currently the end of the school day, as I was packing my things, I noticed Flash Thompson, resident jerk-ass bullying Pete, again.

"Hey! Thompson!" The jock stopped to look at me. "Don't you have better things to do man, like, I don't know, burn some ants with a magnifying glass?"

"Back off Belmont, Puny Parker and I were just having a talk about finances." Flash said as he pushed Peter into the lockers. Ow, that looked painful.

I raised my eyebrows at Flash's choice of words. "Huh, had no idea you could even say 'finances' I'm proud of you Eugene." There we go. Upon saying his actual name Flash's eyes widened and his nostrils flared, reminded me of a bull. Dropping Peter, Flash stomped towards me.

"Wanna say that again, Belmont?" Flash growled at point blank range.

I roll my eyes in annoyance before continuing. "C'mon Eugene, you have ears, you know what I said," Glancing at my watch I realized I had to head home soon. "Sadly, I can't stay for long, ciao."

As I turned around to walk away, I could feel Flash attempt to grab my shoulder, but he was stopped by Stan, the janitor, I like Stan he's a cool dude, and he can make some incredible stories.

At the school's entrance I found my three friends waiting for me, Peter muttered a thanks, to which I nodded in acknowledgement, Harry held out his hand, I obliged of course, and Gwen held out her fist, I also obliged.

"So, now what, you guys down to hang out today?" I asked not really caring what any of the answers would be.

"Sorry, my dad wants me home as soon as possible, says there's something really important we gotta talk about, and he very heavily emphasized the 'really'." Gwen replied.

"My dad wants me home too." Harry said. "Probably the only time he's ever wanted that." He muttered spitefully, neither Gwen nor Peter acknowledged that, guess I got good hearing. I pat Harry in the back, and he looks at me in thanks.

Peter rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry Nolan, but Eddie's coming over and it's been a while since I last saw him."

I just shrug my shoulders. "It's all good. Well this is it, see y'all Monday."

The others hop into the cars that would take them home, I just placed my longboard down and started to skate home. After passing the gas station I noticed an alleyway out of the corner of my eye, and in this alleyway were three big guys cornering a couple, the man had webbed fingers and he had gills on his neck. The woman's hair was in four different colors: red, blue, green, and brown, from left to right. Her jawline was also pitch black, along with some black markings under her eyes. Curious, I decided to Solid Snake my way closer, to get a better understanding of what was happening.

"How many muties do we have to kill before you understand, you ain't welcome here, now get out of our goddamn country you freak!" The man in the middle shouted as he bashed the mutant man in the right side of his neck with his baseball bat.

The Woman screamed, seeing her companion get attacked like that, but while she was focused on protecting him the man on the right was stalking towards her, his crowbar ready to swing. Seeing where this was going, I decided to intervene, I snuck up behind the guy with the crowbar and swung my longboard at the back of his head with all my might, knocking him out instantly, my longboard also broke into pieces, rest in peace Volador forty two inch free ride with a fuji sakura deck, you will be missed.

The other two took a moment to realize what had happened, and once they did, they sprang into action. "You damn kid, you know what you're defending, right? Muties! Fucking freaks! And nothin's worse than a mutie defender." Said the guy with the knife.

Realizing my board was broken the only way I could attack was with my fists and legs, and their weapons did not look as forgiving as fists. Shit. I go for the man with the baseball bat, keeping my eye on his friend. As the baseball bat man swings (I'll call him Batty) I duck and punch him in the gut, he doubles over, so I rise I headbutt him, breaking his nose. Knife Man takes this chance to come at me, he stabs, but I pivot to my right and kick his shin, as he reacts to this, I elbow the side of his face, he hits the building to his right headfirst. That looked like it hurt.

A baseball bat hits the side of my face, causing everything to go out of focus, and all I could hear was some damn annoying ringing. Idiot, first rule of fighting is to never take your eyes off your opponent. Before he could follow up with his attack a strong gust of wind comes from behind me and knocks Batty onto his ass, once everything stopped ringing I turned around to see that the woman's black markings were glowing green, and the gust of wind was travelling where her hand was directed at.

Although her ability was useful it wasn't exactly powerful, Batty was able to get back up, he then slowly but determinedly marched towards us, not only that but Knife Man was getting back up, damn this isn't looking good.

_Mimic. Copy. Duplicate. Facsimile. _

With these thoughts I began to think of the elements, no, not periodic table, like _Avatar the Last Airbender_ elements. I thought of water, blue, cool. I reached out and noticed pitch black markings on the side of my arms and knuckles, these markings then glowed blue, I pointed my arm at Knife Man, who was running at me at a surprisingly slow pace, almost as if he was in slow-motion. Once my arm reached its destination, I just felt the need to push, and when I did a strong stream of water came roaring out of my hand, hitting Knife Man at full force, knocking him into the opposite wall, knocking him out for good. I looked at my arm in surprise then looked at the couple, the woman was far more surprised than the man, after all, I copied her powers.

Wait. What?

Holy shit, I copied her powers! Wait what was that voice in my head? Doesn't matter. Batty's getting a little too close for my liking. I think of fire, red, heat, my markings glow red. I do the same actions, but instead of a rush of water from my hand I get a torrent of flames that impact Batty, he screams in pain as he flies out of the alleyway and onto the sidewalk, knocked out.

I hear police sirens coming from the distance and since the three of us are mutants we'd more than likely take the blame. I turn to the two. "C'mon, we can get out of here the other way, you can stay at my place."

The two stare at me for some time before looking at each other and nodding, the woman puts her partner's arm over her shoulder and follows me out of the alleyway.

* * *

For ten minutes the three of us walk through the crowded sidewalk of New York City, receiving stares from just about everyone. Upon reaching my home I go to the kitchen and put some ice in a Ziploc bag I grabbed from the cupboards, I give the ice to the guy, he thanks me.

The woman stares at him for some time before turning to me. "You don't have to keep copying my powers you know."

I look at my arms and notice that she's right, I still have the markings all over my arms. I just think about being normal-or as normal as I'll ever be after today-and the markings fade away, but so do the powers. "Sorry about that." I apologize.

She just shakes her head signifying it was fine. "Vanessa, this guy's Liam, my boyfriend." Liam nods as he is introduced. "Hey, I got a question: How'd you copy my powers? Far as I can tell the only person who can do that is a girl from the South, and she needs physical contact for that to work."

I had no idea how to react for two reasons: one, this is my first-time hearing of another mutant who can copy powers, two, this was literally the first time I even knew I was above average. So, using my Shakespearian vocabulary I responded as eloquently as possible. I shrugged.

Liam chuckled. "I guess that's the first time you used your powers." I nodded. "Well, you should join us, Nessa and I were trying to go to North Salem, but, uh, things didn't go as planned." Liam said.

I look at the two curiously. "Why do you want to go to North Salem?" Far as I can tell there's nothing for mutants up there

Vanessa and Liam look at me as if I had grown a second head. "Dude, it's where the X-Men are stationed, y'know, the mutant superheroes who fight for us and all that." Vanessa replied.

Oh, right. Damn, I'm an idiot. I nod as I stand up to grab the remote, once I do, I turn on the TV and change it to the news, and lo and behold it's about our encounter from thirteen minutes ago.

_"-he victims were attacked by three mutants, two males and one female, one of the males and the female were said to be in their late teens to early twenties, while the other male is described as being in his early teens." _The reporter on the scene said. _"The younger mutant is said to be five foot seven, wearing black jeans and a black and orange short sleeved t-shirt, physical attributes include black hair and orange eyes."_ A rough sketch of me is shown on screen. The jaw's too wide and the nose a little too big.

_"The other male is said to be six foot one, with dark green hair and blue eyes, his clothing consists of blue jeans, and a white shirt under a long-sleeved button up shirt colored grey and black." _A rough sketch of Liam is shown. He looks more fish like in the photo, you would need to really look at Liam to see any similarities. _"And the female is described as being five foot nine, wearing black skinny jeans and a purple blouse, her hair was described as being four different colors, and she has black markings all along her arms and face." _A rough sketch of Vanessa is shown. The only color they got right for her hair was green, and the markings were all drawn wrong.

_"If you see any of these three individuals, please, contact law enforcement immediately, as they are armed and extremely dangerous." _The news then went back to the station, as the reporters continued to make derogatory remarks towards mutants one of the flowers on the coffee table caught on fire.

I quickly copy Vanessa's powers and shoot a quick squirt of water at the vase, albeit that quick 'squirt' was actually a small torrent of water, knocking the vase over. Mom's gonna kill me, dammit. I take a deep breath before speaking. "Okay, things look bad, but hey! Least they didn't get exact sketches." I grin trying to lighten the mood. Liam just stares blankly at me while Vanessa continues to glare at the TV. I visibly deflate. "If you two wanna go to North Salem it should be at night, you can stay here 'til then."

Liam just nods in thanks before reaching out for the remote, I give it to him and he changes it to HBO, oh, hey, it's a rerun of the _Game of Thrones _season three finale, can't wait for season four.

Vanessa looks in her purse for bit, once she finds what she's looking for she gets up. "Where's the bathroom?"

I point down the hall. "Second door on your left."

She nods in thanks then walks down the hallway and enters the bathroom. I look at Liam. "You want anything to eat man?" I ask as I head to the kitchen.

Liam thinks for a bit. "You got any pizza?"

I Look in the fridge and find no leftover pizza from last night, oh, right, I finished it, in the freezer I see some frozen pizza, thankfully, so I pre-heat the oven and get ready to bake the pizza. "It's a frozen pizza so it's gonna take some time, you cool with that?" I ask Liam, he just puts his thumb up as he watches _Game of Thrones_. "Hey, are your powers aquatic? Cause you got the look, uh, no offense of course."

Liam just chuckles. "It's cool man. Yeah, you're right, my powers give me superhuman physical attributes and the ability to live underwater, kinda like that Namor guy who fought in World War II. Sometimes wonder if we're related, that'd be cool." Liam mutters that last bit to himself.

As I think about what Liam said I begin to feel different, everything looked more vibrant, but I felt sluggish, kinda, and the water bottles in our fridge were starting to sound really good right now.

"Nolan?" Liam poked me in the face. Wait. When did he get so close to me? "Huh, that's interesting, you copied my abilities." Liam placed a hand on his chin.

Looking at my hands I realized he was right, my fingers became webbed, I then felt at my neck and immediately regretted it. Touching my gills felt weird, almost as if touching my own heart, I did not like that at all. Liam chuckles at my little blunder. "Yeah, I did the same thing when I first saw my gills, we may be bulletproof, but the gills are a weak point." Liam informed me, that explains why the baseball bat to the neck from earlier was so effective.

The two of us continued to talk about random crap, anime, video games, television shows, and the like. I learned that Liam and Vanessa went to Midtown Middle School, they're seniors at Midtown High now, but that led to one question on my mind. "Why'd the two of you stay at Midtown if you're abilities activated years ago?"

Liam rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Our parents and the schoolboard. They believed that if two mutants publicly went to school it would create press for Midtown and our families. Fame, and such. It did, just not the kind of press Nessa and I wanted." Liam sighed deeply and paused for a moment before continuing. "We were bullied a lot, called names, attacked, and all that shit, the staff did jack shit, well, the principal, Mr. Coulson, was the only one to do anything, but he couldn't be there twenty-four seven."

I just look at Liam as my thoughts drift to the appalling fact that people can be so horrible for the dumbest of reasons. Before this thought process could continue Liam went on with his story. "For a while now Nessa and I were contemplating on running away, after today we said, 'fuck it' and did. You know the rest."

Before I could reply the oven dinged, signaling that the pizza was done, I tapped into Vanessa's powers and pulled the pizza out of the oven, no need for oven mitts when you have fire powers. As I cut the pizza Vanessa finally comes out of the bathroom, her markings are hidden by her makeup perfectly, and her hair was dyed black, this wasn't the first time she did this, damn, that's a depressing thought.

Vanessa then grabs the two slices and goes to the living room to watch the television. You're welcome, ungrateful brat. The three of us just watch some tv and talk, after some time my parents come home, and that was awkward.

"Hey guys! So, how was New Jersey? Is cousin Jerry gonna be fine?" I question, trying to deflect their attention from my new friends, it doesn't work.

Dad just stares blankly. "Who're your friends? And why does he have gills" Dad then notices something else. "And did you eat the last pizza? We were supposed to eat that when we got back!"

Mom just sighs as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Hi, sorry about my husband he can be…eccentric. My name is Julie Belmont, he's Cayde Belmont."

"I'm Liam Timber, she's Vanessa Kyle." Liam waved at my parents.

I walk up to my parents to better explain myself, as I was explaining, I could see their immediate understanding, well, at least they're fine with those two, it's the moment of truth next. I take a deep breath. "Mom, Dad, you two should sit for this next part." They look at each other before sitting in the couch Liam and Vanessa were previously in.

I place my hands in front of my face and take another deep breath. "Mom, Dad, I am a mutant."

I feel my heart beating at super sonic speed, waiting for their reaction. Mom just smiles at me, Dad, well, he does what Dad does. "Okay." He said, he then went to the fridge to look for something to eat. "You and your friends didn't finish the pasta by any chance, did you?"

I stare blankly, Liam and Vanessa do too. "Wait, th-that's it? No flipping out, no kicking me out? Just 'Where's the pasta?' I-I mean of all the things to say you say that?" I ask, surprised out of my mind about their nonchalant reaction.

Mom walks up to me and engulfs me in one of her amazing hugs. I hug back, of course. "You're my son, nothing's going to change that, and I love you with everything I have, why would you having powers make me love you any less?"

I. Am Not. Crying. Nope, you can't prove it, not at all, it's just onions, damn onions.

Dad then puts the both of us in an even bigger Dad hug. "Your mom's right, besides does you having powers mean we never spent twelve, almost thirteen, years together? Watching each other grow and being there when we needed each other? Hell no. You're still my son, and I still love you."

Y'know what? I am crying, and yeah, I'll proudly admit that, because this is awesome and went way better than how I expected it to play out. Love you Mom and Dad. But this emotional moment came to a screeching halt when I remembered one important fact, we have an audience.

Mom pretty much read my mind and talked to the two before I could. "We have a guest room upstairs, I'll show you." Mom leads the two upstairs, leaving me and dad downstairs.

"You still hungry for some pasta?" Dad asks me.

I just grin in response. Mom eventually comes back downstairs to tell us that the two are sleeping. We have some time together, we talk about their trip to New Jersey, cousin Jerry who was sick with some weird disease (Which is why they went to New Jersey), and the specifics of my mutant power. We deduced that it had something to do with mimicry, but only with one powerset at a time, as I couldn't copy both Liam's and Vanessa's powers at the same time when I tried. After a couple of hours, we eventually go to bed, a long day of change and discovery behind us.

Nothing significant happened over the weekend, the hunt for us was dropped and I began to train with my powers thanks to Liam and Vanessa, but yeah, nothing life changing happened. The life changing stuff happened on Monday November 4th, 2013.

* * *

Its lunch time when everything starts to go down, since the beginning of the day the guys and I have noticed that Gwen seemed off, she would avoid us whenever we tried talking to her, but at lunch she finally stayed nearby us for more than two minutes.

Instead of pushing this we all talked about our weekends, Harry went first.

"So, like, my dad just wanted some input on a new project at Oscorp, guess it was pretty stupid to think he'd want to hang out with me." Harry looked down in dejection at his lunch, Peter put a hand on his shoulder, giving Harry the encouragement to continue. "So, this project has something to do with spiders, but that's all he really told me, other than that my weekend was meh."

Peter went next. "Eddie was able to stay for the weekend, which was awesome. We gotta hang out and he was able to tell me more about what he's up to. He has an internship coming up with Dr. Connors studying lizards and stuff, it's so cool."

Peter had a look of pure satisfaction on his face, as if studying lizards was the coolest thing anyone could do.

I went next. "Well, my weekend was pretty average." Peter and Harry snorted; I gave the two a glare that they did not take seriously at all. "My cousin did come over to stay for a bit, she brought her boyfriend over as well, not sure how long they'll stay though." While the two were staying over a cover story was made that Vanessa was my cousin from Mom's side, seeing as the two do share some facial similarities.

Gwen took a while to get started, but when she did I kinda wish she hadn't.

"My parents are getting a divorce." Gwen said casually as she bit into her sandwich.

The three of us stopped eating to stare at each other before our collective gazes landed on Gwen. I just blink dumbly three times, Harry coughs awkwardly, and Peter finds the table to be very interesting. Before I could say anything, Gwen gets up and leaves the cafeteria, the three of us exchange glances, we nod and I get up to go after Gwen, but once I reach the door of the cafeteria the principal is there waiting for me.

"Mr. Belmont, just the young man I was looking for, come with me, there's something important that needs your attention right this moment." The Principal, who's name I couldn't care to remember, basically dragged me to his office.

"Sir, sir, can this wait? I have something really important I gotta deal with, and it's gotta be done now." Dammit, it's almost like he can't hear me, like he's on autopilot. Huh, now that I think about it his eyes are kinda out of focus, that's strange.

Once we reached his office, I noticed something was off, the secretary was also on autopilot, I really don't like the look of this. We go into the office, and there are three people waiting for us: a tall brown-haired guy around the same age as Liam and Vanessa, this dude was fit and, strangely enough, wore some ruby red sunglasses indoors. The girl looked to be the same age as the guy, she has red hair and green eyes, she smiled at me as she waved, me being the gentleman I am waved back. And lastly was the man in the wheelchair, he was bald and wore a nice-looking suit, but his age was hard to describe, he looked middle age, but also older, again, it was hard to describe.

"It's nice to meet you Mr. Belmont, my names is Charles Xavier, these two are Scott Summers," Scott nodded. "And Jean Grey," Jean smiled, "This may alarm you but trust me, we mean you no harm. We know who you are and what it is you did."

I start to freak out, what if these guys are with the law enforcement, does that mean they stopped broadcasting what happened on Friday to lull us into a false sense of security? Never heard of that happening, then again, I'm a mutant, pretty sure any rule would be bent just so I could end up dead. Before I could continue with these thoughts, I felt a massive amount of calmness rush over me, I felt the urge to look at Jean, she had a look of surprise on her face, but she eventually smirked in response.

A voice that sounded an awful lot like Xavier's spoke in my head. _'We mean you no harm because we are just like you, mutant, and we are here to make you the offer of a lifetime.'_

I look at Xavier, Scott, and Jean for a moment. Well, I've made my choice. "So, what's your offer?"

Xavier smiles in a very fatherly manner. "I would like to offer you a spot on the X-Men."

Oh. Damn.

* * *

**I SPENT HOURS ON THIS CHAPTER! So I'm super excited to do this story, as I've said before the X-Men are my favorite superhero team of all time, the only reason I never did a story until now was because I was afraid my horrendous writing skills would muck it all up, well I don't feel that way anymore. Especially with House of X and Power of X my X-Men hype has risen to new levels. This story will be different to my others in one big way: I have arcs planned out, so far, I've made 19 arcs, there will be more, and the order they're in will possibly change, we'll see as the story of Nolan Belmont continues. Here's the current list (Subject to change).**

**Sinister Arc, X Arc, Recruitment Arc, Brotherhood Arc, Hellfire Arc, Morlock Arc, Apocalypse Arc, Graduation Arc, Phoenix Arc, Legion Arc, Days of Future Past Arc, Legacy Arc, Avengers vs X-Men Arc, Schism Arc, Manifest Destiny Arc, Two Schools Arc, Mutants vs Inhumans Arc, Reunification Arc, and the House of X/Power of X Arc.**

**I have so much planned, and as you can see by these arc titles, you'll recognize a good amount, but don't worry, I'll add some twists and turns here and there. And there'll be some references to the greater Marvel Universe in this story, hell there were a good amount in this chapter alone. And please, leave constructive criticism. Well, That's enough from me, until next time, peace.**


	2. Sinister Beginnings

**Boom, chapter two. This first arc shouldn't be too long, I have five, maybe six, chapters planned before we get into the X Arc. If I could get some reviews in that'd be great, because there were some moments in the previous chapter, I wasn't so sure about. Things will begin to pick up from here. For those of you who read the first chapter, thank you, and whoever decided to read this chapter as well thank you.**

**Just wanna say, damn, House of X and Powers of X were amazing, Hickman sure as hell knew what he was doing. I can't wait to see what they do with the X-Men next. **

**Another thing, as you noticed in the previous chapter there were many references to the greater Marvel Universe, there'll be more in this chapter, I just love putting references, I feel like one of the cool kids when I do it. Also, by the time this chapter is posted I have finished writing the Sinister Arc, and the first chapter of the X Arc has been completed, I hope to keep this pace up, but if I can't I hope you'll understand. Enough from me, on with the story.**

* * *

**Sinister Beginnings**

Wow, I've been a mutant for less than a week and I'm already being offered a spot on the X-Men, awesome. As these thoughts went through my mind Xavier continued, I wasn't paying attention for the most part, but one thing did catch my attention: "You see, my institute is a boarding school, you may still visit home whenever you can, but you will live on campus, and you will have to leave this school." Oh, that's a big change, after some deliberation I made a choice.

"I need to talk to my parents about this," I tell Xavier my address. "If you could come over at around 6:30 PM that'd be great. Oh, yeah there're some other mutants staying with us, is it cool if we talk with them also?"

Xavier nods. "Of course, as they say, 'the more the merrier'. If I may, who are these two?" Xavier asks as he folds his hands together and leans forward in his wheelchair.

"They're a couple, around their age," I point at Jean and Scott. "Their names are Liam Timber and Vanessa Kyle, I met them last Friday." After telling him of my two new friends I suddenly remember: Gwen. Shit, I gotta talk to her. "Can we finish this conversation later? There's something really important I gotta do now."

Xavier nods in understanding, I hurry out of the room and head towards Gwen's locker. There I find the girl of the hour brooding. I walk up behind her and place my hand on her shoulder, telling her that I'm there for her, Gwen turns around and pulls me into a hug, she puts her head on my shoulder and I can feel it getting wet. This is horrible, I just don't know what to say, so I just stand there, hugging her, it takes a while for her tears to stop.

* * *

Finally getting home I call the others for a quick little meeting. "So, at school I was approached by Charles Xavier, y'know, the X-Men's leader, and he offered something amazing." I pause for dramatic effect, Dad and Vanessa both look at me with extremely annoyed faces, I just laugh at their expense. "I was offered a spot on the X-Men."

Mom has a worried look on her face, Dad raises an eyebrow in skepticism, Liam and Vanessa have a look of utter shock on their faces.

"Now, I didn't agree to his offer on the spot, obviously, so he should be coming here in a couple of hours with two other mutants, that way he can answer any questions you guys have." I finish my explanation.

Dad nods, I can tell he has plenty of questions, he has his curious face. Mom has questions as well, but she's currently in clean mode, after all, having three guests come over in a couple of hours can do that to a person. But I see no reason why she'd need to thoroughly clean the house, this place is already as clean as it'll ever be, then again, Mom'll find a way to make it even cleaner. Liam and Vanessa share an excited glance, the two seem to have a whole conversation just by looking at each other.

"Who were the other two with him?" Vanessa asked, she sounded like a child wondering what they got for Christmas.

I have to rack my brain for a minute, what'd they look like again? Oh, right. "Well, the guy was tall, fit, had brown hair, and he wore some ruby red sunglasses, even though we were indoors, his name's Scott" Vanessa's demeanor deflates slightly. Curious. "The girl's a redhead, green eyes, her name's Jean. I'd say they're around your age." Vanessa looks seriously disappointed, almost as if she missed Santa Claus.

"Could've brought Beast at least." Vanessa muttered darkly.

Before I could ask what she meant Liam shook his head no, telling me to not push this, I understand, so I drop the topic. A broom then materializes in front of me.

"C'mon, get to cleaning." Mom ordered. Looking at Dad I notice he's gone, after looking around a bit I see him on the step ladder cleaning the fan, when'd he get there? Looking at the window leading to the backyard I could see Vanessa put her hands in a bucket of window cleaner, her markings and hair glow blue before she shoots a stream of water, with some window cleaner mixed in, at the window. I blink, when did she get there? Liam's in the bathroom, scrubbing so hard the marble floor may as well be powdered marble dust. Next thing I know I'm in the living room, sweeping the floor. Does Mom have the mutant power to make you clean? Cause that would explain all these years of stupid cleanliness.

We spend the next couple of hours cleaning the house, Mom got some food ready a little while ago for when the Professor and his two students eventually arrive. After finally putting the broom down I stop to look at all our hard work, and I swear to God the island counter in the kitchen sparkled. Next thing I know we're all wearing pretty nice clothes, not too formal, but not too casual, realizing that I don't remember changing into this made me realize: I either go on auto-pilot a lot, or mom really does have the mutant power to make you clean, both yourself and wherever you are at the time without you realizing it.

A knock sounds at the door and Mom is immediately there, the rest of us follow at a more leisurely pace. Once we're all in position Mom opens the door and gives Xavier, Scott, and Jean one of her dazzling smiles. "Hello! My name is Julie Belmont, this is my husband Cayde," Dad smiles and says a small greeting. "You already know Nolan," I give a little two finger salute. "And these two are our guests: Liam Timber and Vanessa Kyle." Liam gives a little greeting; Vanessa just grunts in acknowledgement.

Xavier introduces himself as Mom lets them in. "Greetings, my name is Charles Xavier, these two are Scott Summers," Scott shakes each of our hands. "And Jean Grey," Jean waves and says a little greeting. "I believe Nolan has already told you our reason for being here?"

Dad nods. "Yeah, and I've definitely got some questions about all of this."

We all sit at the table in the kitchen, it's a good thing we have a big table. Xavier and his entourage sit on one side of the table-one of the chairs moved to give Xavier space for his wheelchair-my family on the other, Liam and Vanessa sit at the ends of the table. "Well, we're here to give some answers," Scott says as he pulls out Jean's seat before taking his own at Xavier's right. "So, who would like to go first," Dad leans forward. "Mr. Belmont?"

Dad folds his hands together on the table. Crap, last time he opened with his 'million-question rapid-fire' stance my third-grade teacher basically broke out in a sweat and became a stuttering mess trying to answer all his questions, Dad was not impressed. "First: How do we know you're who you say you are? I've heard rumors of a shapeshifting mutant." Okay, getting right in it, then again Dad never was one to beat around the bush.

Xavier just had a little look of surprise on his face, guess that's not a question he gets often. "I am not her, if that is what you are wondering. See, my powers are that of telepathy, if you'd permit me, I can show you the truth." Dad just nods. _'Now, let me show you who it is your son will be interacting with while at my school.' _

A rush of images come at all of us at incredible speeds, weirdly enough, we were still able to understand each and every image: a large Native American guy with a red bird on his shirt, a short hairy dude wearing yellow and blue, a brown haired kid around my age, a dude with wings, an African woman with pure white hair, a massive blue furred guy, and another Native American man with a bionic right arm and leg, these were the X-Men.

_'As you saw those were just seven of my nine X-Men: John Proudstar, Logan, Robert 'Bobby' Drake, Warren Worthington III, Ororo Munroe, Henry 'Hank' McCoy, and Forge. These nine have been together for slightly over a year now,' _Dad's about to ask another question, but Xavier raises a hand to let himself continue. _'Scott, Jean, Warren, Hank, and Bobby have been the first five X-Men for three years now.' _

Dad found something interesting about that. "That Bobby kid, he's only thirteen, my son's age," We had been given basic information from that burst of memories. "You let a ten-year-old boy fight supervillains?" Dad asked incredulously.

Scott answered this question. "Bobby only recently became an official X-Man, he's only ever fought with us three times before that, and each time happened only because he somehow snuck onto the Blackbird."

Dad did not like the sound of that, if his narrowed eyes were any indication. "And how is a ten-year-old boy capable of sneaking onto a highly advanced jet? I feel as though his abilities would give away his position." Dad crosses his arms as he continues to glare at the three.

Jean takes the reigns on this one. "Bobby is a surprisingly stealthy kid, but thanks to John and Logan he can't sneak onto the Blackbird anymore. And the only missions he ever goes on are search-and-rescue, we don't actively send him on combat missions unless absolutely necessary, even then, he stays back as support."

Dad just nodded his head begrudgingly, he didn't like what had happened in the past with this Bobby guy, but he could at least understand. "So, does that mean Nolan will be under the same rules?"

Xavier looks at Scott, he is the field leader after all, this would be more his thing. "Yes, Nolan won't be considered for combat missions until he reaches combat training requirements," I smirk, that'll be easy, Mom and Dad made sure I knew how to fight. Scott smirked, apparently, I was wrong. "The combat instructor is Logan, take that as you will." Oh man, from what information Xavier gave us this Logan guy's a hard ass, this is not going to be fun.

Mom eventually asked her question next. "Does everyone at your school have to be an X-Man? And how many students are there?"

"No, being a member of the X-Men is entirely up to the students, and our number is currently at fifty students, we hope to grow exponentially more as the years go by." Xavier answered. The oven dinged. "Ah, if I may ask, what delicacy will we be having now?"

Mom got up to get the food. "Some lasagna, if that's fine with you." Mom pulled out the tray and made some servings, Vanessa got up to help her.

While the food was being prepared Jean asked me a question. "So, Nolan, how do your abilities work?"

"Well, after training over the weekend we believe I have the ability of mimicry. My powers first activated when I was helping Liam and Vanessa, I copied Vanessa's abilities. Later that day I copied Liam's, we figured out that I can only copy one powerset at a time." I explained. A plate of lasagna was placed in front of me, I gave Vanessa a quick thanks and took a bite, man that's some good lasagna.

After swallowing a bit of her food Jean continued. "So, do you suddenly have Scott's concussive beam ability or what? And are the powers you have any different from their source? Stronger, weaker?"

I shake my head. "I need the powers to be described thoroughly, and from the person with the powers, just because Xavier gave us a description of your abilities doesn't mean I can suddenly control the weather. Seeing them in action is much better though," I take a quick drink from my glass of water. "My, uh, powers are on the same level as the source as well, my telepathic abilities are just as powerful as Xavier's." I decide to give an example. _'Although, I'm not sure if I have a limit to how many powersets I can copy, or if I can only copy mutant powers.'_

"Amazing, the power of mimicry in the right hands can be extremely powerful. Although your skill is not as effective as your source, your telepathy could use some work." Xavier chuckles at the end. He's right though, when talking to everyone else telepathically I felt clumsy, it was almost like learning how to speak, even though I don't even remember that experience of growing up.

Mom looked at me as she made her next inquiry. "Nol," She put her hand atop mine. "Do you want to be an X-Man?"

This was a loaded question. I knew that if I said yes, I'd enter a new world of weird shit (Though I had no idea how weird at the time), but if I declined, then what? I'd always wonder 'what if?' So, I took a deep breath and looked Mom in the eyes. "Yes."

Mom and Dad nod in acceptance, Mom turns to Xavier. "One last question: your combat missions, what sort of danger do you face?"

"There's one guy called Unus the Untouchable, he's not that big of a threat, any direct attacks just bounces off him, so you gotta be indirect, explosions and such. On the other end of that spectrum you have Magneto, his powers are that of magnetism, I underestimated him when we first went against him, that was a mistake. Magneto has his own group known as the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy, they have the same goal as us: mutants living on Earth in peace, only difference is that humans are considered the enemy in their eyes." Scott replied as he finished his plate of food.

Dad narrowed his eyes. "And how often do you fight this Brotherhood?"

"We actually haven't seen them in almost a year now, eleven months to be precise, they've gone underground since our last battle. Not gonna lie, that worries me." Jean replied, finishing her food as well.

Seeing that everyone was done eating Liam got up and grabbed all the dishes to wash them. While he was doing that, I realized something: Vanessa was glaring at our three guests for almost the entire meeting, what's up with that?

Well, I didn't have to wait long. "Why isn't Beast here? Or Angel for that matter? Why don't we ever see the physically different mutants outside of the news reports and crappy phone recorded videos on social media?" Vanessa asked angrily.

Liam just sighs deeply and shakes his head as he washes the dishes, this isn't the first time this happened. Vanessa continues with her rant. "I mean, you bring along pretty boy here, the only weird thing about him is his glasses," Scott touches his glasses self-consciously. "And little miss perfect, who could easily pass for human."

Ah, that's what this is about, makes sense, after all, these two can't exactly blend in, Liam especially. Vanessa just leans in, glaring at the three as she waits for her answer.

"Hank opted to stay at the mansion to finish a project of his, Warren and Forge are out on a scouting mission at the moment, a new, strange island had recently formed, I sent them there to investigate, as its exact location is unknown." Xavier explained, Vanessa did not like that answer at all.

"So, those two happen to be on missions right now? And another question, why'd you seek out Nolan? (No offense kid) Liam and I have been looking for you for some time now, we were attacked this last Friday trying to find you guys, and we've been mutants for years! Yet not once have the X-Men come to us." Vanessa begins to really pick up steam now, this tirade is not going to end well. Nope. Not one bit.

Scott looks offended at Vanessa's reaction to Xavier's answer, his face looked like how one would react if they saw someone step on the flag of their homeland. "The Professor's telling the truth, Hank and Warren are, in fact, busy. Besides we look for mutants who's lives are actively threatened, you weren't in any true physical danger during those years, and there were other mutants all over the world in worst predicaments. Lastly, the X-Men have only been active for three years and we have nine members, we can't be everywhere at once." Scott folded his arms and leaned back in his chair; this totally wasn't his first time in an argument of this topic.

"Besides," Jean chimes in. "Warren could pass for human with his special harness."

Vanessa growled in anger as she leaned forward, she looked like a tiger ready to pounce. Doesn't help that her hair and markings started to glow red. Before this could continue Mom came in clutch and defused the situation.

"Well, it's getting late, thank you again for coming." Mom stood up and shook our guests' hands as she led them to the door, followed by Dad.

"Wait, before we leave, I'd like to ask: have you made a final decision? Nolan made his, but it ultimately falls upon the two of you." Xavier asked.

Mom and Dad look at each other for a moment before turning their gazes at me. They look at each other again and have come to a consensus. "Yes, Nolan can go to your school, and if he'd like to join the X-Men we'll let him." Dad answers.

I pump my fist and shout in victory, Mom and Dad smirk at my theatrics, our guests smile, Liam and Vanessa don't have any reaction though, that's worrying.

"And you two? I truly am sorry we never came to you, please, let me fix that mistake by offering you a place at our school now. What do you say?" Xavier asks the couple.

Liam and Vanessa share a glance of their own. "Thanks professor, but, uh, we have to decline, things are, uh, processing right now." Liam says somberly. I just stare at the two, why would they decline this? They've been talking about going to Xavier's school all weekend.

Xavier nods in understanding. "We shall return next week to bring young Nolan up to the school, I will get his schedule ready and send it to you by Friday, Mr. Belmont," As the three near their vehicle the Professor looks at me with a smile on his face. "Welcome to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Nolan Belmont. I do hope you'll enjoy the experience." The car leaves, it's now just the three of us at the doorway and my friends in the living room.

I clap my hands and look at my parents. "I'm gonna go get started on packing," I pull them both into a hug. "Thanks for letting me do this, I love you guys." My parents reply before we head back in. I run upstairs to my room and begin to get my smaller stuff (funko pops and the like) into one spot. This takes a while, during that time Vanessa knocks on the door, I let her in and notice the look on her face, I don't like this.

Vanessa rubbed her left arm as she looked around my room. "Heeey Nolan, we, uh, we gotta tell you something. It's important," She and I sit on my bed, Liam appears at the doorway. "Liam and I decided we're not gonna go to Xavier's school."

I look at them as if they lost their minds. Why? They so badly wanted to go there, and they now had the chance, so they're just gonna throw it all away? Seems as though Vanessa was also a telepath as she answered all my unasked questions.

"There's just something about Xavier, something I don't like, and if that Scott guy's the leader then I wouldn't last a minute. Dude has a stick the size of my arm up his ass," Vanessa explains. "And I just don't get why the less human looking mutants have to hide, I mean those answers? Totally fabricated."

I give her a reply of my own to that. "Then join. If you want more mutants on the team who don't blend in, do that, become the spearhead for those mutants."

Vanessa just laughs, no humor to be found. "Yeah, I'm not much of a leader. Nolan you can't change our minds, besides there's something we didn't tell you. Last year we were approached by a mutant, the dude's jaw was on fire, like, constantly spitting out fire, said he was a member of the 'Morlocks' and that we're welcome to join."

"It wasn't fire actually, it was a sort of psionic energy that looked and acted like fire." Liam corrected. Vanessa just glared at him; he gave her a grin in response.

Morlocks, never heard of those guys, but if Vanessa's willing to join them there must be something different about them when compared to the X-Men. Her whole reasoning was because there was a lack of different looking X-Men on the team, and if this Morlock guy's missing his bottom jaw then these Morlocks must not be able to blend in like the X-Men can, if my theory is correct. "So, you two want to join a group of less human looking mutants?" They nod. Theory is correct, please, hold your applause. "Where are the Morlocks? How'll you find this 'Psionic Firejaw'?"

Liam answers that question. "The Morlocks have a tunnel system all throughout New York. 'Psionic Firejaw' gave us a way of getting in touch with him. Calls himself Chamber, by the way."

I nod in understanding, damn, today just marked a huge change in my life: I'm going to Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, I'm leaving Midtown, meaning I can't get Flash off Pete's back anymore, and Liam and Vanessa are leaving. Was today worth it? I just hug Vanessa, she hugs back. Liam fully comes into the room so that the three of us could talk for some time. After a while I realize it's getting late, the two go to the guest room after saying their final goodbyes. One group broken up today, tomorrow another.

* * *

The school day happens, and I hate it. But I do find solace in the fact that I'll be leaving this hell hole soon, oooh Monday couldn't come any sooner. Peter and Harry were able to talk to Gwen after I went home yesterday, so things were better, but not by much.

It was lunch time when I was finally able to break the news to my friends. "Lady, gentlemen, I have news," I pause for dramatic effect (I like doing that, in case you can't tell), Gwen doesn't care, Harry does a 'get on with it' motion and Peter just smiles, waiting patiently, dude's amazing, he's gonna go far. "I am leaving Midtown, but despair not! My birthday party is still on track, we're just gonna have some extra guests there."

All three of them look at me in surprise, Peter eventually asks the question on all their minds. "Why're you leaving Nolan?" Peter asks as he fixes his glasses.

"There's another school up in North Salem, parents want me to go there, it'd be better for me than Midtown that's for sure." I answer.

They all look sad, after all, one of the group is leaving. I may not know them the same way they've known each other, but this still feels like I'm leaving behind people I've known for years. But I need to remind myself that we can still see each other, just not in school anymore. But then I also remember that Xavier's is a boarding school. Eh, I'll figure it out when I get there.

"Well, well, well, one of the losers is finally leaving. Thank God, now this place will stink less."

A cacophony of laughter follows, I turn around to see Flash and his posse of flat, two-dimensional side characters. Yay. I tilt my head as I blankly stare at Flash. "What do you want Eugene? To see me cry? Cause I will, but they'll be tears of joy. After all, I won't have to hear you struggle reading in English anymore."

Eugene becomes angry and repeats his actions from last time, dude's so easy to play, he's like a fiddle. "And you guys," I point at his posse of mean girls and jocks. "Don't you have any self-respect? Or character for that matter? I don't even know any of your names, that's how background you guys are." I end my turn.

"How do you not know who I am?" The blonde girl says incredulously.

I smirk, you just activated my trap card. "Are you famous? Did you cure cancer? Find Amelia Earhart? Do you even know who she is? Oh, wait, you did none of those, I don't care who you are." Harry and the whole cafeteria 'ooo'd' at that one.

Eugene grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. "Say sorry to Sally. Right. Now."

I just stare blankly at him. "Nope." Out of the corner of my eye I see the principal marching towards us. Eugene's not gonna have a good time, now is he? Don't answer, that was rhetorical.

"Mr. Thompson! What pray tell are you doing with Mr. Belmont?" The principal glares at Eugene. That was also rhetorical, anyone with eyes could see what Eugene was doing.

Eugene just stutters, failing to get a response out, he just let's go of my collar and follows the principal, head bowed in shame.

Sandy, or whatever, glares at me as she and her group walk by. "Can't wait 'til your gone Belmont."

I just have a shit-eating grin on my face as I wave enthusiastically at her. I take my seat, the four of just talk about random crap. Lunch eventually ends, Harry and Gwen go to their class and Peter and I go to our class. "So, do you have a plan for when you get to your new school?" Peter asks as he closes his locker, having gathered all the necessary materials.

I scratch the back of my head and chuckle. "No, not really. I'll figure things out when I get there, for now, let's just enjoy my final week in this hell hole we call Midtown Middle School."

After the school day is over the four of us hang out at the front of the school, waiting for our rides. We talk about my birthday party and when it'll happen, after finishing these plans my Dad's car rolls up. "See you guys tomorrow." Once I get in the car my Dad immediately starts a conversation.

"You tell your friends what's going on?" He asks as he pulls out of the parking lot.

"Yup, talked about my birthday party too. Are Xavier, Scott, and Jean going to be there?" I question as I pull out my phone, looking up more about mutants, superheroes, and the like. Huh, Tony Stark was just rescued in Afghanistan, cool.

Dad grunts an affirmative. "After the party's done you'll just go with them to the school."

I nod, the rest of the car ride is just filled with the topic of superheroes, like Thor, Namor, and Captain America. Our conversation then goes to a rumor that dad heard about some sort of gamma bomb being tested in Nevada. That's not gonna end well, don't know why but I just feel it. Now that I think about, how many rumors does Dad know? Better not to ask, don't wanna get any premature grey hairs freaking out about 'what-ifs'. We get home and dad brings out a bunch of flattened cardboard boxes from the trunk, we go to pack my things. While doing this I notice a sticky note on my desk.

_Dear Nolan,_

_Sorry we left before you could come home, Chamber informed us that we had a limited window to join the Morlocks or else we'd have to wait for another recruitment run, which would happen next month, so we took that chance as soon as we could. You're a good kid, you've got a bright future ahead of you, so keep doing what you're doing, we believe in you. See you, kid._

_Love, Vanessa (And Liam)_

_P.S. Sorry about missing your birthday party, we'll definitely be there for future parties._

I sigh deeply, dammit. At least it's better than the two of them just disappearing into thin air without so much as a goodbye. We continue to put all of my crap into the boxes, once that's finished Dad and I talk about things. The rest of the week was uneventful.

Monday came, and so did my 13th birthday. It's a small celebration, Mom, Dad, Peter, Gwen, Harry, Xavier, Scott, and Jean. During the party I introduce my old friends to my new ones, pretty sure Harry was intimidated by Scott's physique. Peter would stare at Jean, like, a lot. Starting to think he's gotta thing for red heads.

I find Gwen alone, on the porch in the backyard. I stand next to her, we spend the next moment in silence, just enjoying each other's presence. She eventually breaks the silence. "I'm gonna miss you, like, a lot you know."

I bark out a quick laugh. "I never would have guessed, what with you constantly calling me an idiot over the past couple of months."

Gwen smiles for the first time since her parents informed her of the divorce. Good, I like that smile. "When I say, 'I'll miss you' I mean, 'I'll miss making fun of you'."

I nod. "Uh huh, totally, believe you one hundred percent," We stop to stare at the stars. "Gonna miss you too y'know."

The two of us look into each other's eyes for a moment, but before the moment could go any further a cough comes from behind us. We both frown as we turn around and find everyone at the window smiling smugly, Harry's phone is out. Why's it out? No, no, no, no! Little shit recorded that.

"Osborn. Phone. Now." I hold my hand out as I walk towards him.

Harry runs away, I try to chase after him, but Dad and Scott decide to play bouncer and cover the entry entirely. Traitors. I eventually make it past them and chase Harry throughout the house, he uploads the video on Facebook, so it's too late. The party continues for another hour, Gwen's dad is the first to arrive.

Gwen lets out a deep sigh upon seeing his car. "Well, I gotta go. See you two tomorrow," She hugs Peter and Harry. When she gets to me, she smiles. "See you when I see you." She kisses me on the cheek as she hugs me. After some goodbyes she hops in the car and waves goodbye as they leave.

A limo pulls up after a few minutes. "This is me. See you tomorrow Pete." Harry and Peter do their little handshake. "Keep in touch, alright? Cause if you don't, I'll go up there and kick your ass." Harry jokes as we do our own handshake.

I nod as I say bye to Harry. After another ten minutes Ben Parker pulls into the driveway. "First to arrive, last to leave. See you later Nolan, take care man." Peter and I do our little handshake as well.

All my friends are gone, it'll be a while until the next time I see 'em. Xavier rolls up to my left. "I believe now would be as good a time as any. Wouldn't you agree, Nolan?"

I nod. Scott, Dad, and I go to my room and grab all the boxes, we go outside and put them in the black van that my final guests pulled up in. Must be their recruitment van. A thought crosses my mind. "You know the Mystery Machine from _Scooby Doo? _This, this right here's our Mutant Machine. Eh? Eh?" Jean just shakes her head as the Professor laughs, Scott sighs deeply and shakes his head, a smile on his face. We get all my crap in the car, time for the hard part.

"Well, Mom, Dad, I'll see you guys later. Thanks for everything, if it weren't for you two, I wouldn't be the young man I am today. I love you." I hug my parents. "I'll keep in touch; you can count on that."

Dad backs out of the hug, but his hand is still on my shoulder. "You'll do great, I know you will. You're a Belmont, we've got a long history of badassery, you'll add to that." Dad chuckles as mom elbows him. "I Love you kid."

Mom holds my face in her hands. "My baby boy, when did you become such a responsible young man?" She places our foreheads together. "Show them what it is you're made of. Besides, you're not all Belmont, you're part Essex as well. I love you."

We have one last hug before I get into the van, waving bye as a new chapter of my life begins.

* * *

After two hours of driving we arrive, and there waiting for us is a group of seven people. The seven from the information the professor put into our heads. We step out of the van, Xavier, Scott, and Jean go with the group. "Nolan Belmont, I would like to officially introduce you to the X-Men."

* * *

"Did it happen? Is he there?" A man on a throne in the center of the room asked. This man was large in the muscular sense of the word. He wore pitch black armor with a red belt and a large red diamond on his chest, a large segmented cape starts from his large collar, the inside of his collar being red as well. The man has long, shoulder length black hair and a stylish goatee. His skin is pale white, with a red diamond on his forehead.

Someone on of the monitors turns around, this man looks exactly like the man on the throne, only his clothes look more fitting to that of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, except where the eagle symbols would be there were diamonds. He was thinner than the man on the throne, but still fit. His hair was also short. "Yes sir, Mister Sinister."

Mister Sinister chuckles darkly as he leans forwards, hands folded over his face. "Good. I believe it's time to introduce ourselves."

* * *

**Aaand there he is, the man of the arc Mister Sinister himself. Of all the villains in media Sinister is one of my favorites (Alongside Dr. Doom and Dio Brando), but I don't know how to explain why he is. With House of X and Powers of X Sinister became an even better character in my opinion. I plan on this arc being about five to six more chapters, as seen in the earlier author's note, after that we begin the X Arc. Thank you for reading, and please, leave a constructive review. Have a wonderful day!**

**P.S. Holy hell fuck, I almost lost this chapter, and considering how massive this is I would have had a severe blow to my muse, thank the internet gods for file retrieval.**

**P.P.S. I created a cover image for this story, tell me what you think.**


	3. Sinister Location

**Here we go with chapter 3! With this story I'm taking a new approach: I plan on posting new chapters on Thursdays, but the next couple of chapters will already be written, I'll just do some editing before posting the final version on Thursdays. So yeah, by the time this chapter is posted I should be writing the X Arc, or maybe even the Recruitment Arc. That's enough from me, time to get to the story. And again, thank you for taking the time to read this, I appreciate it.**

* * *

**Sinister Location**

This is, wow, this is it, I'm meeting the X-Men. I go to the left of the group, beginning the introductions. The big guy smiles as he shakes my hand in his vice-like grip. "Name's John Proudstar, on the field I go by Thunderbird. Hope you'll have an enjoyable time here."

I go down one and find myself in front of one of the original X-Men. "Salutations my young friend, my name is Henry McCoy, you can call me Hank, or Beast when the time suits," Hank also has a vice-like grip, just not as strong as John's. "If you ever need any help just know that I am one call away." Hank finishes with a smile.

The team's mechanic is next. "Nice to meet you, names Forge. And no, I will not tell you my real name." Forge shakes my hand, his grip is not like the other two, but still, dude's got a strong grip, bet they all do.

The weather goddess is next. "Greetings, my name is Ororo Munroe, you may also call me Storm." She's regal, but I can tell that she also knows when to have fun. Good, not really a fan of stiff people.

"What's up? Names Bobby Drake, but you can call me: Iceman." The guy around my age says enthusiastically. I can tell the two of us are going to get along just fine. The tall guy next to him just shakes his head in exasperation.

"Sorry about that, Bobby's been waiting to meet you since we've heard of you, excited to see someone else closer to his age on the team," He offers his hand for me to shake and stretches his wings out in a show of elegance. "The name's Warren Worthington III, one of the original five. I also go by Angel."

Next up's the short, hairy, gruff guy. He just grunts. "Logan. Wolverine on the field." And he just ended introductions like that, rude.

Xavier rolls up in front of the group. "You already know Scott and Jean, who go by Cyclops and Marvel Girl respectively. If you'd follow me, I will lead you to the auditorium where the rest of the students are, to allow you to introduce yourself."

I nod, Xavier turns around and enters the building, I follow with most of the X-Men, John and Ororo stay behind to gather my things. John carries some of my bigger boxes, Ororo just uses a controlled gust of wind to gather the rest of my boxes.

As we enter the building I look around, the first place we enter, the lobby I'd gander, is huge. There's a large table in the center with an 'X' atop it, there are pictures on the wall: The first is a picture of Xavier and the original five, the five are in their first X-Men uniforms. The next picture is of the student body, wonder how often they change it out? It'd be a pain to take a new pic each time a new student joins after all. The final picture is of the current team, all in their own unique uniforms.

We take a right turn, through the recreation area. I see some large televisions along the walls with consoles plugged in ready to play, a foosball table, a pool table, a poker table, ping pong table, and other items. In the same area is a kitchen, there are a couple of fridges, an island and a large kitchen table, not sure how often that's used, probably only used when students just wanna hang out. We go through some hallways with photographs of men and women along the walls, probably Xavier's ancestors.

After going through a big double door entrance, we reach the auditorium. The place is big, Xavier obviously plans on getting an absolute shitload of students. In the bleachers I see a group of kids, the numbers do look close to fifty, from what I see their age ranges from six to eighteen. A raised platform is in the center of the gym, Xavier, the X-Men, and I get on the platform, everyone stops talking.

Xavier goes to a circle in the center of the raised platform, once he enters it the circle glows blue. "Hello students, I do hope you've all had a great Monday," Huh, that circle activates a sound system, probably something Forge built. "As you can see the reason to why you are all here is because there is a new student," Xavier turns to me slightly, I stand up and walk next to him. "This is Nolan Belmont, he just activated his X-gene this last week, please help him feel welcome." Xavier exits the circle, its light dims.

Taking the cue, I enter the circle, it lights up again. Oh, oh crap, I have no idea what to say. Wing it. "Uh, hi. My name's Nolan, you, uh, you already know that," Can everyone else hear my heartbeat? Why's it so hot in here? Stop gulping you idiot. "Well, thank you for having me, can't wait to start school!" I smoothly exit the circle (Scott would later tell me that I nearly tripped on my own feet, I don't believe him) and take my seat.

Xavier enters the circle again. "For any of you that share classes with Mr. Belmont be sure to bring him up to speed. Thank you, you may now return to free time," The students begin to file out of the auditorium. "And remember curfew is at 10:00, if any of you are caught outside of your rooms you will have to deal with Logan." The students all let out a collective shiver, the Professor chuckles in response.

After the students leave the X-Men and I get off the platform, Forge presses a button on the platforms side. In response the ground opens, and the platform sinks into the newly created hole. Forge notices my look of astonishment and smirks in victory. "Pretty awesome, huh? My mutant power allows me to create basically anything mechanical, our defense system, the sound system. All me. Cerebro on the other hand was something I upgraded."

I adopt a look of confusion, 'Cerebro' what's that?

The Professor and Bobby walk up to me. "Cerebro is the device I use to help find mutants, it's how I was able to find you, and almost everyone else you will meet in these halls," The Professor explains. He then turns to Bobby. "Your roommate will be Bobby. John and Ororo have already placed your belongings in your room."

Bobby hops around in pure excitement. "It's gonna be great bro, I'll lead you to our room."

"See y'all later." I call out to the X-Men, they all reply in their own ways. As Bobby and I head toward our room I get greetings and pats on the back from any students that walk past us. "I got a question: how'd you sneak on the Blackbird three times?"

Bobby stops on the spot, oh crap, did I break him? He slowly turns around to look at me with wide eyes. "How do you know that?" He asks in a quiet voice.

"When my parents were talking with the Professor your little escapades came to light." I answer. We finally reach our room. I notice that Bobby's half is messy, the bed's not done, there's crumpled paper and candy wrappers nearby the trash can, and his desk is covered in pencils and loose-leaf paper, Mom wouldn't like that. Hell, I don't like it, I have the urge to clean that mess. I blink and tilt my head, I picked up Mom's cleaning habits.

Bobby taps his two index fingers together as he avoids eye-contact. "That's a, erm, that's a…a magician never reveals his secrets!" Bobby finishes, pointing at me as if I were the one who snuck on the Blackbird.

I raise an eyebrow and smirk in response. "Alright, whatever." I empty the boxes and place my stuff in the way I like it, funko pops on the top shelf of my bookshelf, books starting on the second shelf. I put my laptop in one of the drawers under my bed. I then ask my new roommate a question. "So, curfew, do we have to be in bed by 10:00 or what?"

Bobby shakes his head. "Nah, we just have to be in our rooms, we can stay up for as long as we want in here, it's not advised."

Bobby continues to help me put all my stuff away, this all takes about fifteen minutes, during that time Bobby and I just talked and learned more about each other. "So, there was this bully, Rocky Beasley, right? And he's bullying this girl I had a crush on at the time, Judy Harmon. So I stood up to him to defend her, but while doing this I sneezed, and when I looked up I found Rocky covered in a thin sheet of ice, dude was shivering like nobody's business," Bobby explains as he pulls out two cans of Dr. Pepper, I see a mist originate from his hands. He tosses me one of the cans, oooh, chilly. "I run home to explain what happened, but before my parents and I could leave town the rest of the town came at us like a lynch mob."

I just look at Bobby with a look of worry and surprise. "Dude! What the hell? You were ten!" That's just wrong, then again mutant infants are also killed, even by their own parents at times. What a sad world we live in.

Bobby just nods. "I know right? So anyway, just before things could get any worse everyone just stops, like completely, it was freaky. The people then part and at the end of this sea of people is the Professor, with Scott at his side. My parents immediately agreed with the Professor, and that's how I got here." Bobby finished with a sip of his soda.

I just nod as I absorb all that information. Huh, so Scott was there, no Jean, Hank, or Warren. "So, I take it Scott was the first mutant the Professor found?"

Bobby shakes his head. "No, Jean was. Scott was just the first X-Man," Before Bobby could continue a kid knocks on the door, Bobby goes to open it and listens to what the kid has to say. Bobby looks at me with a huge smile on his face. "You down to play some _Halo 4? _Blue Team's down a player, we'd be happy for you to join."

I just nod as a rush of excitement enters my system, time to kick some ass. As the three of us walk down the hallway I turn to the third kid, he looked different, his skin and eyes are white, and his face was plain, nothing special about it. "So, Blue Team, is that what you guys call yourself at the time of play or…"

He turns to me. "Nah, we have five teams of four in our _Halo_ community at this school, Blue Team's always been short a player, but I guess you just filled that position," He has a look of remembrance before reaching his hand out to me. "Name's Armando Munoz."

Bobby turns to me. "His mutant power is adaptation, any situation he finds himself in he can adapt to survive," Bobby leans in close and does a stage whisper. "Too bad he can't adapt his _Halo _skills."

Armando slaps him on the back of his head, this causes an argument to break out between the two, I just laugh at their theatrics. I'm totally gonna like it here.

* * *

Yeah, we got bitch slapped during that game, like holy shit, we stood no fricking chance. I'm now scared of the kids on Orange Team, but I shall use that fear to better myself. Hope we can hit double digit points next time we play them. Oh, right, it's Tuesday, first day of school here at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

For some God forsaken reason I have chemistry for first period, why? My brain's barely active, I'm gonna do shit in that class. Thankfully I had the class with Bobby, he was kind enough to let me telepathically download any information I needed, granted I only got enough for the three classes we share together, I have eight in total, four today, four tomorrow. As I walk into the room, I see Hank, but not as a student, as a teacher.

I walk up to him, waving in greeting. "Hey, Hank-"

He cuts me off with a raised right hand. "Please, Nolan, as your teacher for this class I am 'Dr. McCoy' outside of class I am still Hank though."

I look at him in surprise. "You're a Dr.? But, you're like 18, right, Dr. McCoy?"

Hank just chuckles in response. "Nolan, with my amazingly, spectacularly, beautiful brain getting a doctorate was absolute child's play. And besides, my class had a surprising amount of young people like myself, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, Reed Richards, and Bruce Banner, to name a few."

I nod and give him a thumbs up, before we could continue our conversation the five-minute bell rang, students started to enter the class. The class was rather small, ten students in total, me, Bobby, Armando, and seven others. Class was awesome, everyone was engaged (can't say the same for Midtown), Hank would explain the equations perfectly (unlike the teachers at Midtown), and Hank would make the class fun (also unlike Midtown, wow, I really don't like Midtown). Class ends, next up: history with Logan. Or would it be Mr. Logan?

As I was walking to class three thoughts crossed my mind, two questions and a realization: who in their right mind would make Logan a teacher? Why would Logan agree to be a teacher? And I wouldn't know anyone in that class, crap.

I enter the room and realize I was right, the class had nine students in the room, I make it ten, and I recognize only two of these people from my previous class. Problem is, I never got to introduce myself to them. Taking my seat, I realize that Logan's not here yet, I turn to the girl to my left.

"Hey, uh, do you know where Mr. Logan is?" I ask.

The girl smiles kindly as she answers. "He tends to run late; you'll get used to it. He also hates being called 'Mr. Logan', so just call him Logan. Name's Sonya by the way, Sonya Simonson." She offers her hand, I shake it.

"Nolan Belmont. Sooo, how long have you been here?" I ask, trying to get to know my fellow mutants better.

She shrugs. "A couple months, been thinking about joining the X-Men during that time, but I'm not so sure, the extra training and classes would totally ruin my look." She flaunts her hair and shows off her well-manicured hands and flawless face. I agree, it would be a shame to ruin her perfect looks.

Sonya blushes and avoids eye contact. I said that out loud. Eh, there's no reason to correct myself, she is attractive. As we talk, I tell her about my powers, I ask her if she'd let me download her memories of this class to my brain, she decides to do something else. She blows a kiss at me, but what happens next catches me off guard, a cloud of pink smoke leaves her lips and goes around my head.

A flood of memories enters my head, all-in first-person view. I realize that Sonya gave me her memories of the class, and a new powerset. Sweet. Sonya smiles. "You're welcome. Now show me." She bounces around in her seat, all excited and shit.

I smile, take a deep breath, and blow out a cloud of orange smoke at her, it naturally travels to her head and wraps around it. I realize that the memories I gave her are the ones of when I unlocked my powers. Before we could continue a shadow falls over us.

"You two done flirtin'?" Logan asks rhetorically, with his arms crossed and a look of annoyance on his face.

Shit. When'd he get there? Nevermind, doesn't matter. Sonya and I blush and meekly apologize. Logan takes this chance to begin the class. The way he runs class is different to the way Hank does, history at Xavier's is a nerve-racking experience, any hint of you not paying attention has Logan on your ass immediately. It's terrifying. Class ends, two down, two to go.

* * *

Because the day's halfway over lunch happens now. You see the students in many groups at tables all around the outside of campus. John telling stories of previous X-Men missions to the younger kids, Ororo showing off her powers to a group of students older than me, Scott talking to the professor and Jean. Warren, Bobby, Hank, and Forge all joking together, and Logan brooding alone under a tree.

Bobby notices me and waves me over. Once I've made my way to the group Warren and Forge take the time to ask me how my day's been going. "So, Nolan, what classes have you had, and what do you have left?" Warren asks as he unwraps a sandwich of his.

I take a quick bite out of my hot pocket. "Already had chemistry with," I pause to look at Hank, he nods telling me it's okay. "Hank. Then I had history with Logan, that was a nightmare. I've got literature with the professor next then P.E. with John to top it all off."

Bobby finishes a particularly long slurp of his bowl of noodles, he totally did that on purpose. "Dude, sweet! You and Forge got P.E. together."

Forge nods. "Yup, trust me man, John will not hold back in P.E., you'd be smart to limber up beforehand." Forge has a look of horror on his face. I don't like that, not one bit.

Two massive arms wrap around Forge and I, bringing us closer together, we're also lifted out of our seats slightly. "What's this I hear with my superhuman ears? New guy's in my class? And little Forgey here's giving him some advice?" John 'tsks' in fake disapproval. "Forge, my man, the first day of P.E. is supposed to be a proving ground, where boys become men, girls become women. All on their own."

I really don't like the sound of that. I look at John with hope. "W-well I'm the new kid, surely you'll go easy on me. Right?"

John just smiles. I deflate. I then realize that now's as good a time as any to ask my question. "I've been wondering about this for a while now, why are some of the X-Men teachers? Aren't most of you guys in your late teens?"

Hank nods. "Yes, the only ones not in their late teens are John, who just recently turned 21, and Logan, although, his age is difficult to determine," Hank notices my look of confusion. "While Logan may look like a man in his thirties carbon dating has him at an age exponentially older than that, how old exactly, we may never know."

Looks like you don't need to always be in class to learn something here. The four of us continue to talk during lunch, Forge had to go check something out in a place called 'The Danger Room' whatever that was. Lunch eventually ended. I went to my room and grabbed my stuff, as I turned to head to class, I found the Professor waiting for me at the door.

"Hello Nolan, I do hope you've had an enjoyable day so far." The Professor greets. Because I have his class next, I just go with him.

I nod. "Yeah, it's actually really great, definitely better than Midtown, only thing I miss from there are my friends."

The Professor hums in understanding. "I see, tell me, Nolan, do you remember what it is your mother said to you before you arrived here?" The Professor looks at me intensely, as if my answer would determine my future (It did).

I take a moment to remember what it is Mom said, and then another moment to think about what would be important in her goodbye. It hit me. "Something about me being 'part Essex' why? Does Mom's side of the family have something important to do with mutants?"

Before the Professor could answer we reach the classroom, and the other six kids in the class are already there waiting for us. _"__After the school day is over please come to my office, I will explain everything then."_ Xavier tells me telepathically. He then claps his hands together to gain the attention of the class. "_The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, how many of you finished last night's reading?" Everyone else in class raises their hand. "Sage, you wouldn't mind if I used your memories to help Nolan catch up, would you?"

The black-haired girl replies. "Nope, go right on ahead professor."

Another rush of memories enters my brain. I go to my desk and find a copy of the book there. We discuss the book, although my mind was somewhere else. Why was the name 'Essex' important, far as I can tell that was Mom's maiden name from her dad, but he died when Mom was my age, why would it be important? Whatever, gotta focus on class, pretty sure the Professor's giving me the 'pay attention' look.

Class with the Professor was mind blowing-no pun intended-whenever we thought we knew what we read he would show us a different view of things, and holy crap I will never look at _Huck Finn _the same again. Class ends, it's time for the moment of truth, P.E. with John 'Thunderbird' Proudstar. Well, as Tallahassee from _Zombieland _would say: 'It's time to nut up or shut up.'

In the locker room I found Forge and two others, a large kid who looked a lot like John, I learned that this was his little brother, James Proudstar, he has the same powers as his brother. The other person had a normal body, his head, on the other hand was weird, it was a metallic stylized skull, the eyes glowed blue. His name is Xorn.

"Hope you're ready Nolan, John's not gonna hold back, no matter who you are, just ask James." Forge grinned as he put on his shirt, it was athletic Under Armour wear. It was yellow in the body, with black sides and sleeves.

I notice James grimace at a memory of his. "Yeah, bro's not gonna hold back. Pretty sure he goes hard on me just cause we're related," James claps my shoulder, nearly sending me flying into the lockers. "Good luck man, you're gonna need it."

We exit the locker room and find John waiting for us, a huge grin on his face. The five of us talk while we wait for the girls to come out. After a few minutes Sonya, Sage, and Jean exit the girl's locker room.

"Alright ladies and gents, I have news. As you all know we have a new student, and we all know what happens to new students. Don't we?" John's got the evil smile down perfectly. Wait, what happens to the new students? As I freak out and create many painful scenarios in my head, I fail to notice the rest of the class go to one side of the gym, dodgeballs in their hands.

The whistle blows and I double over in pain immediately. Holy shit! James has an arm on him. While I'm still reeling from this pain the others continue to pelt me for what feels like hours (It was just five minutes in actuality). After that horrible initiation is complete the class really begins, and goddamn was it horrible.

The way John ran P.E. reminded me of bootcamp in all those military films you see. Thankfully John knew when to call for break, and he wouldn't push us too hard, just enough for us to do better next time. Class finally ended. Day one at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters complete. I say my farewells and remember that the Professor wanted to talk to me.

On my way to his office I say my greetings to any other students I meet in the hallways. I also see some of the older students getting ready to leave, probably to hang out at the Salem Center nearby. The younger kids are running around the hallways, following their little remote-control cars excitedly. Others are in the recreation area, playing video games, pool, foosball, hanging out, and what not.

Once I make it to the Professor's office I knock on the door, after a moment I hear a faint 'come in'. Opening the door, I find the Professor with the original five standing at multiple places in his office. Scott at his right, standing at attention like a soldier, Hank and Warren standing at the bookshelf talking about something I couldn't hope to understand, Bobby messing around with the snow globes atop the shelf behind Xavier, and Jean on standby, ready to use her telekinesis if Bobby were to drop a snow globe. Everyone stops what their doing to look at me once my presence is known. Nope, not at all nerve wracking.

The Professor motions to one of the chairs at the opposite side of his desk. "Nolan, welcome. Please, have a seat," I sit in the chair on the right. "Tell me, how was your first day?"

I clear my throat. "Pretty great, better than Midtown that's for sure, as I told you before. P.E. was something else though, history also."

The Professor and the others chuckle. "Yes, well, John does hope for the best amongst our students, and Logan could use some…refinement, but he is the best there is at what he does." The Professor says, the others let out a little laugh at that last bit, inside joke I'd guess.

"And what he does is teach history, bub." Bobby replies with his best Wolverine impression (It sucked).

The Professor then takes a serious position, the atmosphere in the room suddenly became serious as well. "Nolan, I would like to continue our conversation from earlier, about your mother's side of the family."

I scratch the back of my head. "Yeah, you mean 'Essex' right?" Warren, Hank, and Bobby all pause in shock as I say that name. There's obviously some history with that, and not at all good.

"Yes, 'Essex', you see, that name has power in the mutant world, and not at all in the benevolent sense of the word. 'Essex' is one such name, there are others like 'Lehnsherr' and 'Shaw'." The Professor explains.

I swear those names sound familiar, maybe from one of the books in the library? Yeah, it had to be there. Damn, Shaw and Lehnsherr must be some big players if they're in our library books, wait, then why wasn't Essex there?

"Essex is an important name, it has deep ties with the X-Men, Scott especially. But it seems as though you now have even deeper ties to that name. Tell me Nolan, how long has the name Essex been a part of your family tree?" The Professor continued.

"Grandma from Mom's side married a man named Essex, never knew his first name. He died when Mom was my age, house burned down, only way they could identify it was him was the ring on his finger. Why?" I did not like where this was going.

Scott steps forward to answer this one. "Nathaniel Essex, a mutant geneticist, he's been alive for centuries. He also happens to look exactly like your grandfather, give or take a few differences," The monitor on Xavier's desk is turned around and I see two side by side pictures. One is of a man with my grandmother and Mom as a child, they're standing in front of Big Ben, taking a family photo. The other is a picture of a man who shares the exact same physical features, only difference is that he's wearing black and red armor, his skin is pale white, and he has a diamond on his forehead. "After what we learned yesterday, we have strong reason to believe he's your grandfather."

I lean back in my chair in shock, taking all of this in is difficult. First off, grandpa's alive? Secondly, he's a deadly supervillain? And finally, why does Mom not have a mutation?

Before we can continue a whistling noise is heard from the distance, is it getting louder? After a short moment everyone else's eyes widen, Hank tackles me to the ground just as whatever was making that whistling noise connects with the ground, an explosion occurs immediately after.

We all run out of the office, as we run I notice the students all going somewhere else, does this place have a sort of safety vault? Is that what the Danger Room is? How often does this school get attacked? Cause most of the kids are rather calm, even if an explosion just happened outside, that worries me. The rest of the X-Men join up with us as we run to the entrance.

"I smell a lot of soon-to-be corpses, they all smell exactly the same," Logan informs us as he joins the group. He then looks at me. "Strangely enough, they all share a similar scent to the new kid." Storm and Forge look at me in surprise, I shrug in response.

James nods, grim determination on his face. "Logan's right, our intruders share a similar scent to Nolan, and I recognize this scent. It's Mister Sinister."

The others have a quick look of surprise on their face before determination sets in. Forge puts his right arm in front of him, a hologram appears. "Omega-level Security system is activated…now. Sinister and his stooges should have a hard time getting in," A loud noise originates from the front doors of the school. "Or not, dammit." Forge finishes lamely.

We arrive to the lobby and find the man of the hour, my grandfather Nathaniel Essex, Mister Sinister himself waiting for us with two of his guards. Sinister holds his arms out in a dramatic fashion as he stands atop the table with the 'X' on it.

"Guess who's back? That's right. Me. Mister Sinister, now if you don't mind, I'll be picking up my grandson from this forsaken place you call a school and show him his real potential." Sinister holds his arm out in my direction, a malicious grin on his face.

* * *

**So, interesting thing happened while I was writing this chapter: I learned that there's already a mutant called Mimic, and this dude's powers are very similar to Nolan's, only he can use multiple powers at once. After some deliberation I've decided to keep him in the story, I have a plan for that. Also, I've added a new arc: the Krakoa Arc, yup, that storyline, if you know what I'm talking about then you know what's gonna happen, Krakoa will take place after the Brotherhood Arc. As you can see there are plenty of mutants I've introduced in this chapter, two of which become more well-known from The Gifted television series (Ended too soon). They'll stay in the story as recurring characters. That's it from me, thank you for reading. And please, leave some constructive criticism, bye!**


	4. Sinister Exposition

**Here we go with chapter 4! I've decided that the next chapter will be the end of this arc, then we'll get into the X Arc, where things'll really pick up. By the time this chapter is updated I should hopefully be two chapters into the Recruitment Arc. Anyway, thanks for reading. Let's go.**

* * *

**Sinister Exposition**

Everything's tense, both sides just stare each other down. Realizing that the X-Men weren't just going to give me to him Mister Sinister sighed in disappointment. "I really hoped we could resolve things peacefully. Guess I was wrong," Mister Sinister snaps his fingers. His remaining two soldiers get into battle position, glaives aimed at us.

Bobby iced up, Warren's wings extended, Logan and Hank unsheathed their claws, Scott lowered his glasses slightly, a red glow coming from his eyes, debris floated around Jean, Storm's eyes turned white as lightning travelled along her arms, Forge pressed some buttons on his hologram, and John got in a fighting stance, knives in both hands.

I was Mister Sinister's target, may as well get combat ready. I tap into Vanessa's powers, my markings and hair start to glow with a brown light, I feel the earth prepare to bend to my will. Mister Sinister's men rush at us, we rush back.

Logan and James are the first ones to collide. I thought the Sinister soldier on the left was done for, after all, those two were cutting him up like sushi, surprisingly he held his ground. Hell, he did more than hold his ground, he was slowly pushing the two back. He thrusts his glaive forward, piercing Logan in the shoulder, Logan just grunts in pain. The Sinister soldier then flicks his glaive to the right, launching Logan to the second floor.

James hits him in the face with a right hook, his helmet shatters revealing a face just like Mister Sinister's. John then Leonidas kicks the guy in the chest, sending him into one of the columns not affected by Mister Sinister's…explosive entrance. The Sinister soldier shakes his head before rushing at John, he didn't get far though, Bobby made sure of that with a strong blast of ice.

As this was happening turrets erupted from the table, launching Mister Sinister and his remaining soldier across the lobby. The soldier looks up from his place on the ground to find Hank waiting for him. Hank lifts the soldier by the head and squeezes slightly, he then throws him into the air, where Warren intercepts him with a clothesline. Ooh, that looked painful. Before he could hit the ground a piece of debris smacks him outside, courtesy of one Jean Grey. Jean, Warren, and Hank follow him outside.

The other soldier finally breaks out of his ice prison. John attempts another punch, but surprisingly enough the Sinister soldier catches his fist, with some visible difficulty, albeit. The Sinister soldier pulls out a knife from his utility belt to stab John, when the knife connects it shatters. The soldier looks at John in surprise, John just smirks before headbutting the solider, dazing him. John then throws the soldier to where Logan was on the second floor, the soldier and Logan fight through the second floor, John leaps up there to join the fight.

Mister Sinister just sighs in disappointment. "If you want something done, do it yourself, even if you fail. Well, my clones failed, not me. You know what? Nevermind."

Mister Sinister marches up to us…sinisterly (Only word I could think of at the time) Scott takes off his glasses completely and fires a strong, continuous beam of his concussive force blast at Mister Sinister, he just holds his hand out and the beam just stops. Forge's turret is also firing at Mister Sinister, but I can see a weird glimmer in the shape of a sphere around him, the bullets and Scott's beam stop when they connect with the shield. Mister Sinister flicks his hand to his left, the beam connects with the turret. Problem: the turret doesn't get destroyed like I expected it to, no, it just fires wildly as it spins in place.

I quickly put up an earth wall, the bullets stop once they connect. A massive object connects with the wall, weakening its structure slightly, I realize that Mister Sinister must have thrown the turret at my wall. Mister Sinister then jumps atop the wall and bows deeply, making eye contact with me. "I must say grandson, your mutation is far more efficient than previously theorized, I thought this wall would shatter." He drops in between all of us and lashes out at Forge and I, we both fly to opposite sides of the lobby. Damn, he's strong.

My head hits a piece of debris, everything goes extremely out of focus. After what felt like forever everything finally goes back into focus, and things aren't looking good for us. I could see that Forge recovered before I did, he gets the Professor out of here. Bobby and Ororo aren't having a great time, seeing as Mister Sinister is hitting them with a flurry of intricate combat moves, Scott's having a hard time getting a shot in due to how close Mister Sinister stayed with Bobby and Ororo.

I create some giant stone fists over my own and prepare to rush Mister Sinister, but before I could the Professor gave me a warning. _'Nolan, no. He is far too powerful for you to battle, let the X-Men deal with this.'_

_ 'C'mon Professor! You saw how Logan and John struggled with his soldier, the real deal's gotta be even worse.' _I argue.

_'Exactly! Ororo, Bobby, and Scott can hold Mister Sinister off long enough for the others to return. Did you forget that you are his target? This is what he wants. Come with Forge and I. Now.' _The Professor orders.

_'But what if they can't? I need to help, sorry Professor.' _I ignore whatever the Professor says next. Great, day one and I'm already breaking the rules, hope this doesn't become a regular occurrence.

Seeing Mister Sinister have his back turned towards me I decide to go for the stealth approach, just as my fist was about to connect with the back of his head he whips around and begins to strangle me. He then thrusts his left arm out at the X-Men and an invisible force launches them all throughout the lobby.

He chuckles in delight. Holy shit, that noise didn't send shivers down my spine, but through my entire nervous system, I don't want to hear that ever again. "Thank you, grandson. Saves me the trouble of having to hunt you down," He sneers. "Though if you did, I could always hire Kraven, he does enjoy a good hunt."

My markings begin to glow red; I light my body on fire forcing Mister Sinister to drop me. I release a strong gout of flames at him as I drop, launching the two of us away from each other in opposite directions. I land nearby Ororo, who just recovered from Mister Sinister's previous attack.

She grabs me by the arms and lifts me up to my feet. "Stay behind me. Things are about to become, shocking." Ororo thrusts her hands forward, a massive stream of lightning connects with Mister Sinister, forcing him onto his knees, grunting in pain.

Scott walks up next to her and releases another stream of concussive beam force at Mister Sinister, adding to Ororo's impressive attack. Bobby attacks as well, hitting Mister Sinister with a blast of ice. I join in with a blast of fire, I make sure to be on the outside of our formation, opposite Bobby, we all pin him down to one location. We slowly move in, trapping him between us and the wall.

Mister Sinister slowly raises his right arm up to defend himself better, we just increase the intensity of our attack. Oh, crap, I'm getting tired. The intensity of my flames slowly decreases, and he knows it. Mister Sinister raises his left fist and pounds the floor, creating a mini earthquake that knocks all of us off balance. Holy shit, how powerful is this guy? Before I could continue mulling over my questions Mister Sinister suddenly moves at high speeds and kicks Bobby outside, backhands Scott into one of the broken pillars, and stomps on Ororo's chest, knocking her out.

It's just me and him now, no pressure. He slowly turns around and begins to stalk towards me, like a hunter, and I'm his prey. The diamond atop his head begins to glow, it reminds me of when Scott prepares one of his attacks. Oh, hell no. I dive towards my left just as a concussive beam hits the spot I was just at, scattering debris and dust everywhere.

I can't see anything, all I can hear are his footsteps as he walks around, hunting me down. When'd my life become a horror film? Oh, right, as soon as I was born. Mister Sinister lets out a deep, resounding laugh. "Come out, come out wherever you are," Another blast happens, sounds like more stuff is getting destroyed. "You do know this dust won't hide you forever, don't you?" I hear stone shatter.

I already realize that, but I have the feeling that the moment I move, he'd know, and I did not want that. Things continue to break. There is one positive though: whenever Mister Sinister uses his concussive beam his diamond begins to glow, giving away his position. I decide to take a leap of faith, when he does his next concussive attack, I slowly move my right leg back, his head jerks in my direction, I freeze.

He stares in my direction for a moment before turning around and firing another blast. Curious thought: If he wants to find me why does he keep on creating more dust? I have a weird feeling. I slowly turn my head to my left and come face to face with Mister Sinister himself, he has a large smile on his face, all his sharp teeth clear to see.

I feel my heartbeat skyrocket as he does nothing but stare. He tilts his head to the side and looks at me curiously for a moment, his smile quickly returns. "I've known you were here the entire time. And all the dust I created? Just to lull you into a false sense of security." He snaps his fingers and all the dust gets sucked into one location. All the dust converged into the diamond on the forehead of the Sinister soldier that fought Logan and John.

I look up to the second floor and find the two unconscious, oh shit. The soldier just smirks at me before he runs outside to help his comrade. Jean, Warren, and Hank are going to lose.

Mister Sinister stands up and walks around me. "I must say grandson, thank you. After all, it has been a while since I really got to let loose. Alas, all good things must come to an end as they say," His right hand is covered by what looks like a shadow in the shape of his hand, the fingers become talons, those things look sharp. He sinks his claws into my right shoulder, sharp, blinding pain is all I know. I feel another sharp pain, this time in my gut, it lasts only for a moment, everything begins to fade to black. "Take a nap, this trip of ours will take some time."

Mister Sinister puts me over his shoulder as I fight to stay awake. Outside I notice two other Sinister troops dead on the lawn, looks like Forge's defense system kinda worked. I also notice the remaining three X-Men incapacitated, glaives at Hank's and Warren's necks. Bobby is on the ground, knocked out from the kick that sent him out here.

Mister Sinister just shakes his head no. The soldier holding Warren hostage messes with his gauntlet, shortly after a large dropship descends from the sky. The ramp descends and a red carpet comes rolling out. This guy can't be serious, I mean, a red carpet?

As we walk up the ramp Jean calls out to us, too injured to attempt an attack of any kind. "Why're you doing this Sinister?" Jean demanded. "You know we'll find you, and we will rescue Nolan. After we kick your ass of course."

Mister Sinister sighs before giving me to another one of his clones, this one wearing clothing befitting a medic. "I thought I made it clear. Nolan's my grandson and being the loving grandfather, I am I decided to help him. And yes, I know you'll find me, so I'll say it outright to avoid waiting any longer. You'll find us at Island Sinister."

I was placed in a bed at the back of the ship. Feeling the dropship rise I realize that I've just been kidnapped, cool. Mister Sinister walks into the med bay and stops at the side of my bed. He has a small smile on his face as he strokes my hair. "Trust me grandson, I am helping you. It may take some time, and some harsh discipline, but you will thank me in the future."

Everything goes black after that.

* * *

**X-Mansion**

Jean slowly gets up, that Sinister soldier got a good cut in on her right thigh, now if only everything would stop spinning, that'd be dandy. She limps to Hank and Warren and breaks their handcuffs with her telekinesis. "C'mon you two."

Warren rubs his wrist. "Thanks Jean. Damn. Hank, go check on the students, Jean and I will make sure everyone else is okay."

Hank nods before running into the school, he checks on Bobby real quick, he nods, telling Warren and Jean that he's fine. Warren and Jean run in at a slower pace and are surprised at what they see. Everyone else strewn about, in varying states of consciousness. Logan's the only one awake. Warren flies up to him to check up on him, Logan just waves him off to John. "The kid, where is he?" Logan slurs, his healing factor hadn't healed all his injuries yet.

Warren sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Sinister, uh, Sinister got him," Logan growled as his claws popped out of his knuckles. That was always weird to see, as gruff as Logan is, he really does care about the students. Warren held his hands up in fear. "Don't stab me! Please. Sinister told us where they would be."

Logan calmed down and sheathed his claws. He then ruffled his leather jacket, a cloud of dust coming off him. "And? Where'd they go?"

Warren had a serious look on his face. "Island Sinister."

An hour later the team got together in the mission room, in their suits ready to siege Island Sinister to save their newest student. Hank's battle suit consisted of black and yellow arm bracers and black jeans. Bobby wears a black and blue sleeveless suit. Warren's suit is full body, with a white center and navy-blue sides, a cowl that lets his hair flow and does not cover his face. Jean wears a blue and yellow suit, with a cowl like Warren's. Scott wears a primarily blue suit, the inside of the thighs being yellow, with a yellow gloves, yellow boots, and a yellow utility belt connected to a 'y' shaped belt across his chest, he also has a cowl like Jean's and Warren's, his glasses replaced with a visor.

Logan's suit consists of combat boots, navy blue pants, and a stylized sleeveless yellow armor top, black claw like designs on his sides, blue shoulders, and a black and yellow cowl over his face. Ororo has a black and yellow suit, with some white designs here and there, she also has a stylized cape in two parts, both connecting to her bracelets on each wrist. Forge wears a basic X-Men uniform, black bottom half with a black on yellow top, although his right arm and leg are uncovered, he has a utility belt covered in various gadgets. John wears black jeans, his top is also black except for the red stylized bird on his front, he also has a red domino mask, his belt has holsters for his knives.

Scott and Forge stand in the center of the mission room, the X-Men sitting in a semi-circle around them. Forge brings up a hologram of Island Sinister to the team. "Alright ladies and gents, we know where Sinister took Nolan, and we all know what's on Island Sinister." Forge begins the meeting.

All the X-Men are in deep thought, last time they were on Island Sinister they nearly died, that was not an experience they wanted to go through again. "Do we have any idea what we're dealing with. Any new developments we should be worried about?" Warren asks.

Scott zooms in on the island. "As far as we can tell everything's the same, I don't like that. So, before we land, you, Ororo, and John will scout ahead, tell us if it really is safe." Warren, Ororo, and Forge nod.

"What will the rest of the team be doing?" Ororo questions.

"While we wait, Hank will see if he can't hack into any of Mister Sinister's data caches, see what else we can learn," Scott zooms out and places two dots on the map, one blue one gold. "Gold Team will be our scouting team; Bobby will rendezvous and join you. Blue Team will move in afterwards, we'll make noise, allowing Gold to move in and extract Nolan from under Mister Sinister's nose."

A simulation plays out. The gold dot moves around on the island, shortly after the blue dot begins to move, explosions following the locations the blue dot was previously at. The gold dot then moved into a building found at the island's center, there an 'X' can be found. The gold dot moves over the 'X' and leaves the building, the dot becomes a gold X as it does.

Scott folds his arms and looks over the team. "Any questions?" Bobby raises his hand; Scott nods his head in Bobby's direction.

"You really think Sinister's just going to let us leave with Nolan just like that?" Bobby's inquiry causes Logan and John to mutter their agreements. "And besides, are you sure I should be on this mission? I thought I wasn't 'officially ready for combat'."

The Professor rolls beside Scott and Forge. "Agreed, Bobby, but this is a dire situation, but remember: you are a part of the rescue team, any combat you see should be minimal at best."

"And at worst? Kid's gotta point, I think he should stay on the Blackbird as support." Logan said, ignoring Bobby's remarks.

"Dude! That's not what I meant, I mean, look, I really want to save Nolan, I mean dude literally became my roommate just last night. I'm just surprised you'd let me on this mission, especially after what happened last time." Bobby says, lowering his head in shame at the memories from his last combat mission.

Ororo puts her hand on Bobby's shoulder and smiles kindly once he looks at her. "Bobby, you know there was no fault to be had. In fact, you were the only one who felt as if it was your fault."

Before Bobby could reply Scott took over the conversation again. "She's right Iceman," Everyone knew immediately what that meant: the time of being students and teachers was over, it was time to be X-Men. "No one blames you," Scott lets out a breath. "Come on team, let's go save the recruit."

The Professor and the team leave the mission room, but Professor X separates from his X-Men. As they take a left to go to the hangar, he takes a right, he then arrives in front of an elevator, he then takes the elevator down. After the doors of the elevator open, he travels down the hallway and stops in front of a large door with the letter 'X' on it. He places his eye in front of the blue lens in the center of the X, a light scans over his eye twice, the blue lens beeps and becomes yellow.

"Professor Charles Xavier, Professor X." Professor X announces. The yellow light then becomes green. Once the doors open the Professor rolls down a rather long hallway to a section in the center of the round room. There a console sits, waiting for the Professor. On it is a helmet connected to the console by three wires, one on each side and one from the back of the helmet.

The Professor puts the helmet on, and the room immediately comes to life. A massive hologram of the Earth appears, yellow lights strewn about. The Professor focuses on the group of nine yellow lights heading towards an island on the Pacific Ocean.

Once the connection is made the Professor makes himself known. _'X-Men, you know your mission. Save Nolan, learn any new information if possible, and to destroy Mister Sinister's base of operations. Good luck.'_

* * *

**Island Sinister**

I wake up in a large bed, there're columns at each corner, these columns lead to a large canopy above me. The sheets are a deep blood red, like the one on Mister Sinister's forehead. The wood of the bedpost is a deep, pitch black, don't know how he did that.

As I get out of the bed, I find a butler waiting for me at the door, he looks just like Mister Sinister as well. He walks towards the drawer next to the bed, bows slightly and places the silver platter in his hand on the drawer. He takes off the top to reveal a really delicious looking breakfast. Blueberry waffles, a container of yogurt, a banana, and some cinnamon rolls, a cup of apple juice on the side. Strange, that's my favorite breakfast, how does he know that? Know what? Nevermind, don't wanna know.

I cautiously look at the butler, does he really expect me to eat this? It could be poisoned for all I know. The butler seems to know exactly what I'm thinking. "If the food were poisoned why would we bring you here alive?" He's gotta point.

I cut off a piece of one of the blueberry waffles and carefully take a bite. Not dead, sweet. I continue to eat the rest of my breakfast. Wait, I thought it was Tuesday afternoon, school just ended, why am I being served breakfast? The butler replies. "You have been unconscious for seventeen hours, sir."

I choke on my cinnamon roll in surprise. Seventeen hours!? Oh man, Mom and Dad must be losing it right now. Wait, why haven't the X-Men arrived yet? I notice something as I mentally ask this question, there's another presence in my mind. The butler's a telepath. Just as I expect he replies. "The X-Men have been following the island for the past four hours, Mister Sinister finds it enjoyable to move the island when the X-Men are close."

The island moves!? Well, that's something. I finish my breakfast and stand up. The butler thrusts some clothing in front of my face. I look at the clothes and realize that they look just like Mister Sinister's, although in my size. Creepy, first my favorite breakfast now my clothing size, what doesn't he know about me? I was about to deny the clothes, but the butler just looked at my right shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Right, there're holes in my hoodie, one could clearly see the bandages through the holes, I take the clothes and begrudgingly change into them, he'd better be able to alter these, I am not wearing matching outfits with that psychopath for any longer than I have to.

After I finish changing the butler leaves the room, telling me to follow. As the two of us walk together down a hallway I look around, on the walls are just pictures of Mister Sinister, all in various types of clothing, I could see years under the portraits. Holy shit, these date all the way back to the 1800s, how old is this guy? One portrait catches my attention, it's Grandpa, by that I mean, the disguise he took when he met Grandma. As we walk, I notice many people, men and women all around the building, guess what? They all looked like Mister Sinister. The butler opens a massive double door entrance, red diamonds on the center of each door.

Inside the room I find Mister Sinister on a massive throne in the center, guards along the edge of the room, two at each of his sides and two at the bottom of the stairs that lead to his throne. Many of his clones-these ones in regal clothing-are all over the room, they all stop whatever conversation they have, to stare at me as I enter. There are other clones on computers, all in front of the throne in a semi-circle formation, a large space in-between two of the clones, this space also leads to the stairs to the throne.

Mister Sinister throws his hands out in excitement as he gets up from his throne. "Ah, Nolan, my Grandson, how are you? I do hope you've had a great rest. Oh, and I do apologize for your shoulder, only way to get you to come along without having you kick and scream. Well, you could've, but you didn't! Thank you." He explains as he walks down the steps, he stops in front of me and places a hand on my left shoulder.

I glare at him. "Why am I here?"

He sighs in annoyance before looking over at some of his clones. "Grandchildren, always ungrateful, am I right?" The clones all laugh at my expense. "You want to know why you're here? Well let me tell you why: because he demanded it. And when you get an order from him you damn well complete it."

Him? Who's him? At my look of confusion Sinister laughs, he takes his hand off my shoulder and begins to walk in a circle around me, like a shark. "Okay, ha ha, my ignorance is funny. Now answer me, who's 'him'?" I demand.

Sinister raises his right hand, all the clones on the computers press a button at their station simultaneously. He folds his arms behind his back as he prepares to tell me who he is. "What fun would it be if I told you his name? Exactly, no fun. But trust me Grandson, this man has great, terrifying power, you would do well to not anger him. That is, after all, what's best for your health."

That description was nightmare inducing, thanks Gramps, now I won't be able to sleep for a while now. Well, may as well do what I do best: be persistent, he has to break if I just keep on pushing, right? "Okay, who is this guy?" I continue this for five minutes, he just stays silent the entire time, damn, he's good.

Sinister just shakes his head in amusement. "No, no more, that's all you'll get out of me," He walks around and stops behind one of the guys on a computer to check something, he nods in satisfaction before continuing his little walk around his throne room. "Ah yes, your suit, you wanted me to change it, yes?"

I honestly forgot about that. I nod. He walks up to me and places his hand over my head, I immediately thought of that moment in _Dragon Ball Z _where Piccolo used his clothes beam move on Gohan, just before the Cell Games. My outfit immediately changed, the bottoms stayed pitch black, the cape went away, and the red diamond became an orange circle broken into four parts, where the breaks occurred became an 'X'. The knuckles were orange, and two orange X's appeared on my shoulders, one on each one. The sides below the ribs became orange as well. All in all, I looked great, the belt became orange as well.

An explosion was heard from the distance. I smirk, looks like my friends are here to save my sorry ass. Sinister frowns deeply before barking out orders. "Guards, with me. Technicians stay in your post, the rest of you to your rooms."

They all follow Sinister's orders like ants obeying their queen. I stay in the throne room, I hope they have a plan, y'know, instead of just blowing shit up as they come rescue me. After a few tense moments I hear the faint noise of a laser from behind the throne, so do the Sinister technicians. After a perfect circle is made in the wall everyone in the room get into battle positions. Idiots, now they're trapped in a pincer. A powerful gust of wind launches part of the wall into the pillar the throne is upon.

A white and blue blur rockets into the group to my left, taking out three of the technicians. The other two look at where their friends were, big mistake. They are then electrocuted by Storm. On my right a metallic ball rolls towards the Sinister technicians, they all look down at it, it explodes in a flash of light and sound. Bobby comes in on an ice slide and freezes two of them as he slides by.

I see the other three begin to recover. I tap into Liam's abilities and leap on the one in the center, his head hits the ground hard taking him out of the battle. I hop up and ram my head into the one on my left like a bull, as he flies though the air he gets blasted by Forge, his right hand has a blue circle on it, the circle dims as the light from it fades. I grab the other technician by the neck and begin to strangle him, as he falls to his knees, I punch him hard in the face. These guys definitely aren't as strong as the ones that invaded the mansion yesterday.

Stretching my arms and legs I look up to see the others look at me with surprise on their faces. I wave at them enthusiastically. "Hey guys! Thanks for rescuing me!"

* * *

**So, be honest, how good are my combat scenes? As you can see, I've already referenced a big-name X-Villain. One thing I like to do is set up future story arcs way earlier, don't know why, just do. If you look carefully in previous chapters, you can see that I've already set up at least two future arcs. Next up, is the finale to the Sinister Arc. Thank you for reading, have a great day. And remember! Constructive criticism is the best criticism.**


	5. Sinister Battle

**Happy Halloween! I hope all of you out there have a great day today, and remember be careful. I've just gotta say today's pretty good, a new trailer for the Netflix Witcher series, season two of Kengan Ashura, ah, tis great. Well, let's get started.**

**Here we are, the final chapter of the Sinister Arc. Thank you for sticking around this long, I hope to see you again in my story's future. One thing I'd like to begin with is stating that the summary for this story will most likely change, my plan is to change the summary to match each arc, I'll put a poll up to see what you guys think. That's enough from me, on to the final chapter of the Sinister Arc.**

* * *

**Sinister Battle**

This was getting annoying. Every time the Blackbird would get anywhere near Island Sinister the island would move ahead, out of landing distance. Cyclops had a deep frown on his face as he piloted the jet, Forge was less controlled, seeing as he would constantly slam his fist into his armrest and would growl many obscenities towards Mister Sinister. "You know, if you're gonna tell us where you are, you'd best not move your goddamn island. Asshole." Forge slightly increased the power of the engines, the island moved even faster in response.

Iceman let out a groan of annoyance. "This totally lost its enjoyability about three hours ago."

Before Forge could snap back in annoyance the island suddenly stopped. Forge and Cyclops looked at each other in surprise. "Alright team, the island stopped (Finally), when we land Gold Team will disembark, Blue and Iceman will stay behind." Cyclops ordered as he began the landing process.

As soon as the Blackbird's ramp lowered Angel, Storm, and Forge rushed out of the jet, the rest of the team stayed aboard to discuss their plan of attack. "Wolverine and Thunderbird, you two will be with me as the vanguard. Marvel Girl and Beast will follow closely behind. Beast, Forge has a usb device, once he enters it into one of the computers, you'll get a notification, move back from the battle and gather as much data as possible, Marvel Girl will defend you." Cyclops explains.

A more in-depth hologram of the island appears between the X-Men. "Once Gold Team returns, Iceman will join them, they will then go to Mister Sinister's fortress and rescue Nolan," As the gold dot moves amongst the trees the blue dot travels to the nearby outpost, an explosion is simulated as the blue dot and outpost connect. "While this is happening, Blue Team will stealthily move into position at one of the outposts, once a suitable position is found we begin our part of the plan. Any questions?"

Thunderbird raises his hand, Cyclops nods. "What do we do if we can't hold our position anymore? Retreat?"

Cyclops rubs his chin in thought for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "We'll push forward, Marvel Girl will tear apart the terrain to slow down Mister Sinister and his clones, I'll use a flare from my belt and blast it, creating a smoke screen that should last ten minutes," Iceman has a look of confusion on his face, Cyclops immediately knows what he is going to ask. "Forge and I tested it out once, after an accident occurred the last time, when we fought Omega Red."

Cyclops looks at the X-Men waiting for any more questions, none come up. The team then take the time to gather their nerves and prepare for what waits ahead. After fifteen minutes the radio goes off, Angel's voice coming from it. _"Blackbird, this is Angel, we should be arriving soon."_

Cyclops presses a button near the radio. "This is Blackbird, how soon are we talking?" Cyclops replies.

A knock is heard from the window. Cyclops looks up to see a smiling Angel waving at him. The ramp opens, Forge, Storm, and Angel entering shortly after. "We found a small number of guards throughout the forest, most heading towards the fortress for some reason." Storm said as she placed twenty red dots on the map, thirteen moving towards the fortress.

"That's not all. We found out that Sinister's under orders from someone else, a 'He'. No names were said." Angel added.

Wolverine grunts as he stands up. "Sinister's probably got something planned for the kid, wants as many guards on point as possible. And this other guy, Beast you've gotta figure out who he is." He unsheathes his claws, looking them over in the light for a moment, satisfied he puts them back in.

Cyclops nods. "Alright, X-Men, let's go save our new recruit." The X-Men all exit the Blackbird, the jet flies into the air and cloaks as soon as Forge finishes a button sequence. The team splits up into their squads, ready to complete their mission.

* * *

**Twenty Minutes Ago**

Angel, Storm, and Forge ran out of the Blackbird, as soon as he was no longer constricted by the jet looming above him, Angel hovers off the ground, knowing that if he traveled too high, he'd run the risk of being spotted. Storm and Forge enter the forest, Storm floating with help from a little tornado. Angel flew above the tree line, using his enhanced eyesight to see things from a birds-eye-view, literally. In the distance Angel could see a group of four Sinister guards at a small outpost, two at either side of the door, two on the roof. "I see four guards at an outpost, seventeen yards away."

Forge nods. He then pulls out what looks like a small radio dish from one of the compartments in his belt, how that fit, Storm will never know. He points it at the outpost, audio coming into their earpieces.

_"Why is the boy here again? What does he bring to the table?"_ A voice sounded from inside the structure.

_"Why are you questioning Mister Sinister's actions? Besides, there is more to it. He wants him here, Mister Sinister has his own agenda regarding the boy as well." _Another voice, the same as the first one said.

Storm and Forge share a look of confusion. Who is 'He'? And why does 'He' want Nolan? After a brief pause one of the voices sounds. _"Yes sir, of course. We shall return at once." _An order must have come in from the radio. The two guards inside the outpost walked outside, ordering the two at the door to follow them. The two on the roof were the only guards left.

Instead of risking their mission the two stealthily move around the structure, Warren makes sure trees can cover his flight over the outpost. Continuing their scouting mission Gold Team finds one thing constant: of the four outposts they came upon an extra nine Sinister guards leave their outpost, en route to the fortress, under the same orders. The team meets in a clearing, away from the outposts to gather their information.

Forge creates a small hologram from the palm of his hand, showcasing the island. "Okay, so thirteen of Sinister's men went to Fortress Sinister, all under orders to possibly witness something of great importance."

Angel folds his arms. "That leaves seven guards left throughout this part of the island."

"We mustn't forget, 'He' wants Nolan, we need to find out who 'He' is and what it is he wants with Nolan," Storm says. Forge and Angel nod in agreement. "Let's head back to the Blackbird. I believe we've gathered enough data."

Gold Team returns to the Blackbird.

* * *

**Now-Blue Team**

Seeing their target in sight Cyclops raises a fist, Blue Team crouches low. Cyclops points at Marvel Girl and Beast, he then points at a raised cliff that has a vantage point over the base, the two sneak their way up the hill on their left. He then points at Wolverine and Thunderbird and points behind a large boulder besides a tree, on their right, they have the base trapped in a pincer maneuver. The two get into position. Cyclops crouch walks forward, hiding behind a boulder. Looking around he notices three guards on the roof, two at either side of the door, and one on the watchtower, his back to them, more were in the outpost itself for sure.

Cyclops points his left index and middle finger at the watchtower, he can see some rocks lift slightly off the ground. He then points his right index and middle finger at the front of the outpost, Thunderbird prepares to throw the boulder.

Cyclops raises three fingers, and slowly begins to count down. Once he hits zero a massive number of rocks and debris smash into the watchtower, toppling it. The Sinister guard is only on the ground for a moment before a blue, black, and yellow blur lands on him, and then throws him into the wall of the outpost. On the right side, a large boulder is launched into the front wall, throwing the two Sinister guards in opposite directions, screaming is heard from inside the base. Cyclops sees an active oven in the base and smirks. Perfect.

Cyclops fires a beam at the oven, the force of the impact causes a massive explosion to erupt, surely heard throughout the island. "Good job X-Men! But the fun's just getting started. Marvel Girl and I will find some high ground and act like a spear, Wolverine and Thunderbird, be our shield. Beast, stay with them, but as soon as Forge makes the connection…"

"…Move back and prepare to hack. You can count on me old friend." Beast replies with a smile and a thumbs up.

Cyclops smile back before running up the hill, waiting besides Marvel Girl. "Gotta say Cyke, you do know how to show a girl a good time." Marvel Girl smiled flirtatiously at Cyclops.

Cyclops blushed as he rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Oh, uh, y-yeah, I guess," He shakes his head to regain focus. "Stop that," He chides, it loses its effectiveness though, as a smile could clearly be seen on his face. "We're on a mission."

Marvel Girl winks at Cyclops, as she clicks her tongue and does finger guns. "Of course, of course. Whatever you say boss," She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek, laughing at the blush that appears on his face. Her face then becomes serious as she senses a group of Sinister soldiers approaching their position. Pieces of debris and boulders and trees rise out of the ground, ready to strike. "Alright boys, its go time."

* * *

**Gold Team**

Following the route taken before, Gold Team had little to no trouble. Well, except for that one time a Sinister guard may have, kinda saw them. Iceman took care of it; the Sinister guard has an ice block for a head now. After reaching the third outpost an explosion can be heard from the distance, looks like Blue Team did what they were supposed to. Iceman felt a hand push him down by his head, before he could tell Angel off, he notices many boots running in front of them, all heading towards Blue Team. After the boots pass the team gets back up, Iceman looks at Angel with a large smile on his face, Angel just flicks him in the forehead before taking flight.

Storm takes flight as well, the two of them look around for any more possible problems but don't to find any on their path. They fly just above the tree line, to avoid being discovered. Nearing the South wall of the fortress the two land, waiting for Forge and Iceman to meet up with them. A minute later the two arrive at the south wall of Fortress Sinister. Forge places his hand on the wall, a laser can be heard. He then moves his arm in a circular motion, creating a large opening, before the piece of the wall can hit the ground a gust of wind lifts it up. Storm peeks her head into the hallway and sees two guards in the distance, they also see her. Storm raises her right arm and thrusts it at the guards, the circular piece of wall collides, knocking them out.

Iceman does a combat roll into the hallway, he gets up on one knee and holds his right arm out like a finger gun, checking both sides of the hallway. "Clear." He gets up and runs along the wall, going left, once he reaches the corner, he peaks his head out before jumping out, still having his finger gun. The other three of Gold Team stare blankly at each other.

Forge walks behind Iceman and places his hand on his shoulder. "You're going the wrong way, the throne room's over here." Forge turns Iceman around and leads him in the correct direction.

As they walk, they hear footsteps, the team hides inside of a nearby supply closet. Putting their ears to the door Iceman and Storm can hear multiple voices outside. One being more powerful than the others. "What is happening out there?" Mister Sinister ordered.

A voice like his, but less intimidating replies. "The X-Men are at Outpost Gamma, our troops are taking heavy losses, we need the soldier classes immediately!" A wet sound is heard, the guard is heard chocking on his own blood.

"Did. You. Just. Order me to do something?" Mister Sinister rhetorically asked, anger radiating out of his voice. "You are nothing but a clone! A FAKE! I ORDER YOU, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!" The sound of a body hitting the floor is heard, alongside a loud splash of liquid, most likely blood. Mister Sinister is heard taking deep breaths. "Come, let us find out why the X-Men decided to blow up my island. They could have just come to my throne room; we could have talked all of this out like civil people-" Mister Sinister was too far away to hear at this point.

Carefully exiting the closet Gold Team could see the Sinister guard slumped against the wall, a large streak of blood starting at the center of the wall, streaking all the way down to the corpse. A large hole in his chest. The members of Blue Team all have varying looks of disgust on their face, but Iceman had it the worst, as he was dry heaving in disgust. The team continued to the throne room, Forge's hand on Iceman's back, supporting him.

Forge's map blinks green. Forge places his hand on the wall and does the same thing he did to the south wall outside of the fortress. Instead of picking this wall up with a tornado Storm blasts a huge gust of wind at it, launching it at high speeds into the room.

Angel flies in at high speeds, his wings tucked in due to the small spaces of the room. He takes out three of the technicians, headbutting one and extending his wings slightly to clothesline the other two. Storm flies in on a small tornado before firing a blast of lightning at the other two whilst they were distracted, taking them out of the fight.

Forge grabs a flashbang out of his utility belt and rolls it at the feet of the other set of Sinister technicians, for some reason they look right at it as everyone else closes their eyes. A loud bang is heard, Iceman then takes this chance to come in on an ice slide and freezes two of them. Nolan gains gills and webbed fingers (His gloves shifted to accommodate as the webbing appeared) and takes out the remaining three technicians.

Gold Team looks at Nolan in surprise. After all, he's wearing a new outfit and he took down three Sinister clones, yes, they were near the bottom of the ladder but still, without any prior experience that was a feat to behold. Nolan stretches his limbs slightly before waving enthusiastically at Gold Team. "Hey guys! Thanks for rescuing me!"

* * *

The X-Men look at me in surprise, what? Is it the suit? Before I could ask what was going on Forge walks up to one of the computers and plugs a usb in, he then fiddles with the interface over his right arm.

Ororo and Angel keep an eye on any form of entrance here in the throne room. Bobby walks up to me. "Dude, how're ya?"

I shrug. "I'm okay, nothing weird happened to me. Wasn't strapped to a table to be experimented on or anything. What's going on outside Bobby?"

"Oh, yeah, we're on a mission now, we go by our codenames." Bob-Iceman explains. Hm, already used to that, y'know what? I need a codename, what should it be? Rogue? Nah, doesn't fit, I'll find one eventually.

I nod before walking over to Forge, he's on one of the monitors. I can see an animated version of his face hop all over the screen, there also happens to be an animated version of Beast's face on the screen checking over files that Forge's avatar doesn't check. "Are you and Beast, hacking Mister Sinister?"

Forge nods as he continues to hack, I can tell he's deep in thought, so I go to Storm and help keep an eye on the entrance they so elegantly created. "Are you okay Nolan?" Storm asks me, concern clear on her face.

I smirk in response and give her a thumbs up. "Course. Though there is one thing that's bothering me," Storm nods telling me to continue. "Mister Sinister told me that 'He' ordered my kidnapping, and that worries me. That just means there's someone stronger than Sinister out there." I look down the hallway, nothing.

Angel appears beside us. "Sinister never said who 'He' was, did he?"

I shake my head no. "Why? Do you guys know."

Bobby chimes in. "Nope, we were hoping you'd know."

"Shit. Alright, I got all I could, we should meet up with Blue Team, they more than likely need help." Forge says as he walks to us, placing his usb in one of his pouches on his utility belt.

We all follow him, as we sneak out of the fortress Angel turns to Forge. "You find what we were looking for?"

Forge shakes his head in annoyance. "I've got a whole bunch of other data, on things like a new sentinel project called 'Master Mold' and some data on the island Angel and I were looking for not too long ago, he calls it 'Krakoa'. But there's nothing on who this puppet master is."

The five of us exit the facility and hear another explosion in the distance. We all look at each other. Angel takes off into the skies, Iceman creates an ice slide and travels along it. Storm uses her powers to create tornadoes under Forge and I, instead I tap into her powers and create a tornado of my own, she looks at me in surprise for a moment before smirking. We all go as fast as we can to help the rest of the X-Men.

As we walk up a hill, we find Beast unconscious, Marvel Girl is nearby keeping him covered. She turns around preparing to attack us, we all very quickly put our hands up in surrender. She's a damn powerful telekinetic, wouldn't want to be hit with one of her attacks. She smirks before launching the rocks at more of Sinister's men, knocking them out. We look over the edge of the hill and see that things aren't looking so hot for Cyclops, Wolverine, and Thunderbird.

For Cyclops I notice that he's holding his arm in pain, and he's pinned down by fire coming at him and his small piece of cover from three different angles, which happened to be the remnant of a wall. Wolverine's…he's, uh, how do I say this? Well, he's fighting in the thick of things, but I can see his skeleton in his left arm, and its metal? He also has a glaive sticking out of his thigh, and yet, he's still fighting. Many of Sinister's men surround John, he is the biggest threat after all, literally and figuratively.

Forge, Storm, and Angel hop into the battlefield, taking a big load off the other X-Men. The effects are immediate, Sinister's men are already being pushed back. I prepare to jump in, but an invisible force holds me back, I look at Jean and find her giving me a stern glare.

"Nolan, no. You'll stay up here, use your telepathy to wake up Beast, he's better prepared to help the rest of the team." Marvel Girl orders. Iceman creates an ice shield over the three of us, a slot at eye level for Marvel Girl to see through.

Dammit, I know she's right, but I also know that I'd be a great help to the team if I join in. Man, it looks like disobeying orders IS going to be a common occurrence. The moment Jean launches an ice boulder, courtesy of Iceman, I latch onto it, flying into the battlefield at 'holy shit, that's fast' speeds. I hear Marvel Girl and Iceman call out my name, but honestly, I don't care.

Before I jump off the high-speed projectile of cold death, I decide to tap into Mister Sinister's abilities. And holy shit balls, dude has waaay more powers than previously shown. Bastard was holding back at the school. I raise my fists and slam them on the ground, but not before creating shadow constructs over my hands. An earthquake erupts, knocking everyone on the ground onto their asses.

I rush into the mass of Sinister troops and attack them with a flurry of attacks. For a moment everyone just stares, thankfully the X-Men recover first and help me deal with all these guys. Thunderbird and Wolverine appear at my left and right respectively. Wolverine glares at me for a moment. "Don't know what you're plannin' kid, but you'd better be ready to explain to Slim and the Professor when we get outta here."

Ah shit. The Professor, he's gotta be pissed at me right now. _'On the contrary Nolan, I'm more curious if anything else. But yes, I am rather angry.' _HOLY SHIT! Professor! Damn near gave me a heart attack.

While I was focusing on calming my heart down a glaive slashed at my face, cutting across my nose. Shortly after I felt something strange, my body was creating new muscles and skin and slowly stitching them together. Weird. Huh, now that I think about it, Wolverine looks totally fine now. I look to my right and find half of his face missing. Nevermind. I grab the arm of the Sinister clone that slashed my face, I jerk him closer to me before elbowing him in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him out.

I stay in my fighting stance but notice that things have gotten quiet. I look around to find all of Sinister's clones knocked out or dead, be it from blunt force trauma or succumbing to blade related wounds. Footsteps slowly walk towards us, we all line up, side-by-side, even Iceman's here. I guess if its serious enough they let even Iceman join the battle. Hey, Beast's awake too, awesome. The footsteps near, and out of the smoke comes Mister Sinister himself, a large smile on his face.

For once, he doesn't make any quips, no barbs or insults, he just runs at us. Weird thing though, I see him run at us in normal speed, looking around with my eyes I realize we're both moving at super speed. I decide to take advantage of this. As soon as Sinister got into position to tackle John I intercepted by tackling him, he lets out a grunt of surprise and pain as we both roll along the ground, everything speeding up to normal speed. Everyone's head jerks in our direction, they all come to the both of us ready to help me.

I tried to keep Sinister on the ground by trapping his arms and legs, he just uses his telekinesis to try and force me off. To counter this, I use my own telekinesis, a bubble of clear energy originated around us, the bubble was fighting against itself. Jean knew what this was and ordered the others to hit the dirt, once they did the bubble exploded, sending Sinister and I to opposite directions. My back hits a tree, thankfully my healing factor kicks in, while Sinister smacks through the hill we were just on, face first. The hill collapses atop Sinister pinning him for the moment.

Cyclops turns to Forge. "Call the Blackbird, quickly!" He orders.

Marvel Girl and I move to the front of the group and create a telekinetic shield, just in case Sinister decides to launch rocks and shit all over the place. Guess what? He does exactly that. Ow, holding up a telekinetic barrier is difficult, after a long time the rocks stop pelting our shield, Sinister then appears in front of the shield and begins to punch it repeatedly. Marvel Girl and I both get bloody noses. The moment the shield drops Thunderbird shoulder checks Sinister back, sending him almost one hundred yards away, into the trees. Damn dude, you strong.

"Blackbird's about a minute out." Forge tells us.

That's way too long. With all the damage we sustained earlier I highly doubt we could hold out for another minute. I was quickly proven wrong. Storm's eyes turn white, lightning runs along her arms, and she floats into the air. But that wasn't the most impressive thing, no. What was impressive was the massive storm cloud that appeared out of nowhere, lightning crackling constantly, ready to strike at a moments notice. The moment Sinister comes into view Storm thrusts her arm in his direction, a massive bolt of lightning strikes Sinister at full force, launching him back into the trees. Even with all the trees hiding him from sight the lightning continues to strike him.

The X-Men all stare at Storm in awe as she holds Sinister down. I look at Logan. "Has this never happened before?"

He just shakes his head. "'Ro always told us she was practicin' a new move, had no idea it'd be anything like this."

I look up at Storm and see her in a new light, she's easily one of the most powerful members of the team, I'd put money on that. As this was happening the ocean around us began to act up, the winds did as well. Holy shit, we get it Storm, you're powerful.

Forge's arm blinks with a green light. "She's here!" The Blackbird decloaks and lands behind us. Storm slowly descends, keeping up her attack as she does. Once she lands on the ground she walks into the Blackbird, keeping up with her attack, we follow her on board. Cyclops and Forge hurry into the pilot and co-pilots seat, quickly, but efficiently activating the jet. As we leave the island Storm raises her right hand, everything outside stops, utter silence follows, she brings her hand down at a fast speed, a massive strike of lightning connects with the island, destroying it, a thunderclap quickly follows. Ow, I can't hear. That thing was so loud I bet people in Australia heard it.

The sky clears and Storm's eyes return to blue. We all just stare at her in shock, she has a confused look on her face before she smiles. "I thought I told you I was working on a new move?"

Cyclops is the first to recuperate. "Well, yeah. It's just…wow, that was something else Ororo."

The mood in the jet lightens up, everyone congratulates Ororo on her job well done, she takes all the praise with grace. For the next five minutes Bobby just excitedly talks about the mission, greatly exaggerating many of the events to the other half of the team. After he's finished spending all of his energy Jean looks at me with stern eyes. Ah, crap, I was hoping she'd forget about that.

"Nolan, I ordered you to stay behind and help Hank recover, why'd you disobey my order?" She asks with an edge in her voice.

I notice all eyes on me, even Scott's and Forge's. I break out into a sweat as I think about what to say, but then I realized something: I did the right thing stepping in. I clear my throat. "Because Jean, I saw that the others needed my help, so I had to. I know, I know, I'm not an official X-Man and I haven't hit Logan's requirements for combat mission readiness, but I don't care, I wanted to help my friends. So, I did." I opened my eyes expecting a warning from Scott or Logan, instead I saw everyone smirking, what?

"Good, that's the kind of response we like to hear," Scott swivels around in his chair getting into pilot mode again. "Besides, its not us you should worry about, it's the Professor."

Oh, oh no, I should've let Sinister take me to his boss, that would've been less painful then what's coming up. Oh man, what's my punishment gonna be? Cleaning the bathrooms for a whole semester? Being the groundskeeper? Being the assistant teacher for the younger kids? Okay, that last one wasn't so bad, but still! Aaah! All this stress is gonna lead to grey hairs before I'm fifty.

* * *

For the next thirteen hours we fly to the school, talking about random topics and getting to know each other better. Scott for one likes to play video games, surprisingly enough, unsurprisingly, his favorites tend to be flight simulators, like _Ace Combat_. Warren's a millionaire, his money partially funds the school, Xavier does most of the funding, though. Hank has a part-time job at Horizon Labs, their CEO Max Modell, is an old friend of Hank's. Bobby loves to watch anime, I talked him into watching _Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, _I just know he's going to love it, can't wait till they animate Stone Ocean. Jean has family in New York, she visits them every now and again with Scott. Pretty sure those two are a thing.

John was a part of the United States Marine Corps, he dropped out of high school and faked his age to join, not surprised, dude could easily pass for being twenty-five. Ororo's actually old friends with the current prince of Wakanda, Prince T'Challa, which is awesome. Forge met the Professor years ago, to help on the construction of Cerebro. And Logan, well, Logan doesn't have any memory of his life before seven years ago. The rest of the trip was great, but man was I dreading the return.

We finally return to the school, as we exit the Blackbird, we find the Professor waiting for us at the foot of the ramp, a stern look on his face. Ah man, time to face the music. _'Indeed Nolan, to my office. Now.' _I follow the Professor, head bowed in shame. Damn, this isn't looking good.

Looking up I notice that we're in a silver hallway, this isn't a part of the school. _'This is where the X-Men prepare themselves. To your right you will see the door to the Danger Room,' _I look to my right and see a big door with an 'X' on it. _'And down this hallway on your left you will find the Cerebro Room.' _Another big door with an 'X' on it.

We enter the elevator and it is awkward. The only sound is that of the elevator music. I guess the awkwardness of quiet elevator rides can't be beat, even by superheroes. We exit the elevator and go to the Professor's office. Surprisingly enough, the school's fixed, no debris, no turret lying on the ground, it looks just like it did when I first got here.

"Forge created many robots that help with cleaning, and one of the students has the ability to reverse time around inanimate objects within a five hour time frame, rather useful really." The Professor opens his office door.

To no one's surprise my parents are in there already. Mom and Dad basically jump out of their seats as they rush over to hug me, bombarding me with a flurry of questions. 'Are you okay? He didn't experiment on you, did he? Do you have the urge to destroy everything in sight?' That last one surprised me, then again, Dad asked it. I assure the two that I'm fine. Hey, there's someone else in the room. I look over Mom's shoulder and see grandma, that can't be a coincidence.

Grandma comes up to us and wraps me into a hug. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She begins to sob. Mom, Dad, and I attempt to comfort her, Mom and Dad both share a confused glance. Guess Grandma knows what happened exactly, why don't Mom and Dad?

After a few minutes we all sit down at the seats in front of the Professor's desk, Dad, me, Mom, and Grandma. "Twice now Nolan has disobeyed direct orders to not interfere with a battle. I can allow some leniency for the first offense, Mister Sinister was hunting him down to begin with."

Mom speaks up before the Professor could continue. "Wait, who's 'Mister Sinister'?" Oh man, I notice the look shared by the Professor and grandma. This is not going to end well, is it?

Grandma turns to her left, placing her hands atop Mom's arm in an attempt to keep her calm. She takes a deep breath. "Mister Sinister is a man from a very long time ago, a mutate actually," She notices the confused looks on our faces. "Mutates are people given mutant traits. Anyway, Mister Sinister has lived a long time, lived many lives, one such life involved me," Mom's eyes narrow as she begins to connect the dots. "Mister Sinister's real name is Nathaniel Essex."

Dad makes a noise that sounds like a cross between 'Huh'? and 'What'? Mom just stares at Grandma wide eyed for a minute, muttering at a mile a second. She stops and glares at Grandma. "You're telling me that my dad is an evil hundred-year-old mutant?"

"Mutate." Grandma and the Professor chime in.

Mom continues, not at all acknowledging their correction. "And that he wants my son for some…experiment that we know nothing about!?" Before Mom could continue with her rant, I place my hand on her arm, she looks at me and calms down immediately.

"Never thought I'd say this but, could we go back to talking about the things I did wrong?" I plead. I notice Grandma give me a grateful look. I just prevented the inevitable Grandma; I didn't save you from shit.

The Professor takes the reigns of the conversation again. "Honestly, I believe a punishment is in order: for the next month and a half Nolan must make sure the Blackbird-our jet-is clean and ready on the spot at a moment's notice."

Whoa, hold on, how am I supposed to-the Professor gives me an info dump of what I need to know about jet maintenance. Sweet, have to clean a jet for the whole winter semester. That was sarcasm, in case you can't tell. The meeting concludes, at the front gates of the school I hug Mom, Dad, and Grandma goodbye, I notice that Mom's angled away from Grandma. I look at Dad, he nods, he's got this in the bag.

Once they leave, the Professor and I go back to the school, there I find the rest of the X-Men waiting, all in their battle outfits still, weird. The Professor and Scott nod at each other. Scott walks forward and stops in front of me. "Nolan, you've proven yourself in the last mission, so I have one question for you: Would you like to join the X-Men?"

I stare at Scott in shock, I look past him to find the others smirking, waiting for my response. Well, most of them were smirking, Logan just shrugged, great guy that Logan. I look Scott in the eye and hold out my hand, he takes it.

"Of course, I'd join Cyclops. Allow me to reintroduce myself," I back up and fold my arms behind my back, standing at attention. "Nice to meet you, X-Men, you can call me Mimic."

* * *

**Pacific Ocean-What's left of Island Sinister**

Thirteen hours later Mister Sinister's eyes snapped open, his eyes darted around, all he could see were bodies and what's left of his island. Damn those X-Men, especially that weather witch for causing all of this. Swimming to one of the floating pieces of debris Mister Sinister gets on it, taking in all of the destruction.

Mister Sinister sighs deeply as he puts his hands on his hips. "It's going to take another century, at the earliest, to build another Island Sinister. This new one will have a lightning rod; I'll make sure of it."

Before he could continue with his plans for a future Island Sinister an ominous blue light shined from out of nowhere behind Mister Sinister. _'No, no, no, no, NO! Not now! Dammit.'_ Mister Sinister slowly turned around and made eye contact with a man in red armor on a red horse.

He is one of four horsemen.

**Sinister Arc; Complete. X Arc; Commence.**

* * *

**Thank you, thank you. I really do appreciate all of you for taking the time to read this arc, I really appreciate that. So, somethings I feel like I should clarify: One, Sinister's clones have varying levels of efficiency, soldiers are better than guards, guards are better than technicians, so on and so forth. Two, because they are clones the X-Men aren't afraid to kill them, they will knock out the Sinister clones at their first attempt, but if they have to kill a clone they won't lose any sleep over it.**

**Next up is the X Arc, for this Arc I plan on showcasing some adventures Nolan has with individual members of the X-Men, so I plan on this arc being nine chapters. Each chapter will be Nolan and one other member of the X-Men, for example 'X-Mimic and Iceman: Now There Are Two of Them'.**

**Another thing, I'm hoping to find someone to make some official art of Nolan, if you'd like to do this leave something in the reviews or just send me a PM, I'll send you a description. I also hope that you guys will help advertise my story, tell your friends about it, and what not. Again, if you're interested just leave a review or PM me. So, yeah, thanks for reading this first arc of hopefully many arcs. See you next time, stay awesome.**


	6. X-Now There are Two of Them

**Hello there, welcome to the second arc of A Sinister Past and a Promising Future! As said before, this arc will be Mimic teaming up with another member of the X-Men, so expect nine chapters. Thank you for reading, let's get started. Also, happy N7 day!**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Iceman: Now There are Two of Them**

It's been four months since the whole Sinister deal, since then things have been going great. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters is a fun experience, meeting new people, seeing new powers, its uncanny. Can't forget the other big change, I'm a part of the X-Men, like, holy shit! That's awesome. I've gone on a few missions over these past months, rescuing mutants, helping people at disaster zones, etc.

There've also been changes in the superhero world outside of the X-Men, Tony Stark revealed himself as Iron Man, a new duo known as Ant-Man and the Wasp have become active, and a giant green rage monster has been seen in the Nevada area. Crazy stuff, to be honest.

During the four months Forge and Hank combed through all the data we got from Sinister's computers. Honestly, there wasn't much, we learned more about this 'Master Mold' and 'Krakoa' but nothing else. Doesn't help that there was absolutely nothing on who Sinister's leader was. What was awesome was when Thor came to the school. Apparently Ororo's giant-ass thunderstorm got his attention. Thor, impressed by Ororo's power, offered to train her whenever available, she accepted.

Dad also called me a week after the Sinister ordeal, telling me that things between Mom and Grandma are slowly getting better. Grandma told my parents the story of her and Sinister, apparently Grandma's side of the family has some deep ties to mutants in general, this is what garnered Sinister's attention. A month before his 'death' Grandma figured this out, she didn't react kindly to that, Sinister promised to change his ways, that was obviously a lie. Grandma went back to London after that, but I just couldn't help but get the nagging feeling that there's more to that story than she lets on.

Other than that, these four months just cruised on by. Right now, it's after school, Bobby and I are hanging out in our room playing Mortal Kombat, I'm kicking his ass. He chooses Sub-Zero (Unsurprisingly) and I go for Kung Lao, and I have got to say, Bobby is horrible at timing. After winning for the fifth time in a row we get a message from the Professor. _'Nolan, Bobby, please come to the mission room.'_

The two of us share a look before leaving the room. We greet many of the students on our way to the mission room. The Professor's office is at the central location of the school, next to it is an elevator that only students and staff of the school have access to. Bobby and I go into the elevator and speculate what could be happening that would need our assistance.

Walking to the mission room we find Scott, Forge, and the Professor waiting for us, all in casual clothes, well, Scott and Forge are, the Professor's in a suit, as always. "Nolan, Bobby, thank you for coming. Please, take a seat, this should only take a moment." The Professor greets.

As soon as we sit down Forge activates small holographic monitors in front of us. "Thirty-two hours ago, a small town in Ohio dropped off the grid. SHIELD made sure news couldn't spread. They sent us a message telling us that a mutant was the cause of this, George West, he's around your age." Forge said.

A picture of an African American boy shows up on the right side of the holographic screen. We get basic information on him, lives with his parents and two siblings, straight A student, helps around the community whenever he can. Good guy.

"Do we know his powers? Did it have to do with the town going off the grid?" Bobby questioned.

Scott stepped forward. "That's where the two of you come in, this is an investigation/rescue mission, nothing more. There'll be some SHIELD agents on site, you'll cooperate with them, understood?"

Bobby and I nod. The Professor gives us some more information next. "From what I've gathered Mr. West is a gentle soul, so please, be careful to not aggravate him."

I smirk as I raise my thumb. "Got it. Hey, quick question: are you going to be watching over us like you did back at Island Sinister?"

"Only for a moment. I have a meeting that I must attend to soon, so I won't be able to give you constant support, my apologies." The Professor says with a slight look of regret on his face.

"It's cool, Prof. Mimic and I can handle it." Iceman shoulder bumps me.

The other three nod and leave the mission room, the Professor to Cerebro, Scott and Forge to the hangar. Iceman and I enter the changing room and put on our battle suits. During the four months Hank, Forge, and the Professor studied my armor closely, making many breakthroughs as they did. See, my armor is cloth like when not worn, as soon as I put it on, it hardens slightly, but it's still flexible. Since then Hank and Forge have been attempting to reverse engineer it for everyone else's suits.

After changing we go to the hangar, the Blackbird ready for flight, God, cleaning that for a month and a half was a pain in the ass. We take the seats behind Forge and Scott, both still in casual clothing. "So, Scott, Forge, doing anything today?"

The Blackbird rises from the separated basketball court, I wave at John and James as we fly away, they wave back. "Jean and I have a date, some show on Broadway she's been wanting to watch for a while now." Scott answers.

Forge twists some dials. "Still trying to figure out how to reverse engineer the data from your armor," Forge pretty much vibrates in his seat. "It's so exciting!"

We all just share a laugh at his enthusiasm. An hour before we hit the spot Scott put the Blackbird in autopilot before turning his seat around. He pulled up a holographic map of the town, George's house highlighted. "The two of you are just going to investigate. SHIELD agents will accompany you into the town, assisting where need be. One person from town, Madison White, gave us some more insight on George."

Forge turns around. "We know that when aggravated George tends to clam up, so avoid doing that," Forge and Scott look at Iceman. Iceman just has the fakest innocent look on his face. "We also know that he's a friendly individual, not used to combat at all, use that to your advantage."

"Did Madison say anything about what his powers could be?" I ask.

Scott shakes his head. "She was on a trip that took her out of town, she just got back."

The radio goes off. Scott and Forge turn around and give our credentials to the SHIELD agents. After that's done, they begin the landing sequence, as soon as we land the ramp of the Blackbird lowers. "Good luck you two." Scott calls out.

We look back and give a thumbs up before exiting the Blackbird. A mile from the town we find a convoy of SHIELD vehicles and a small battalion of agents, a group of three walks up to us. The man in the middle is tall, early to mid-thirties with brown hair, the other two are just some rank and file agents.

"Agent Phil Coulson, SHIELD. I saw you come in your jet, but I don't see any X-Men with you." He introduces himself.

Now that just pissed us off, dude doesn't consider us real X-Men. Iceman looks far more ticked off then I am though, after all, he is one of the original five. "Listen up old man, I'll have you know that I'm the third member of the X-Men, Iceman. And my friend Mimic here fought Mister Sinister toe-to-toe."

That was an exaggeration, Sinister would have kicked my ass if it weren't for the others, also, I more or less threw him around, no real damage was done. What the hell, let's play Iceman's game. "Iceman's got a point. The two of us are full-fledged X-Men, and we're here to help. Take it or leave it."

We cross our arms and glare up at the agents. They just share a quick look and meet our glare for a moment. Coulson breaks it up. "Whatever, if you call yourselves X-Men then you can help deal with this." He turns around and leads us to a collection of large vehicles, all in a square shape.

We go into the square, agents staring at us and whispering to each other, no doubt surprised about their back up. We'll show 'em how wrong they are. We stop at a make-shift command center, there we find Madison with a worried look on her face as she constantly glances at the town.

Noticing our arrival, she looks at us, her look of surprise is quickly replaced with one of confusion and disappointment as soon as she notices Iceman and I. C'mon, is everyone going to be like that?

"What's this? Where are the X-Men?" Madison asks.

Coulson raises a hand to calm her down, before waving in our direction. "These are the X-Men, Ms. White." The agents in the area all chuckle as if it's some kind of joke. Assholes.

I feel a presence in my mind. _'Calm down you two, yes this is unfortunate, but take heart, in the future they will all regret this moment after all of the accomplishments you will undoubtedly make in the future.' _The Professor calms us down.

We both take a deep breath and decide to overlook all of this. "Look, Ms. White, Iceman here is one of the original X-Men, I also happen to be extremely powerful. Now this is all you're gonna get, we'd appreciate it if you cooperated with us," I look around. "All of you."

Nodding in satisfaction at the response from the humans Iceman steps forward. "Ms. White, could you tell us anything you know about George? Hobbies, places he likes to hang out, people he hangs out with?"

Madison sighs deeply. "George's a great kid, friendly with everyone, makes sure we all have what we need. It's a small town, everyone knows how great George is. Let's see…his hobbies, well he likes to help out at the local swimming pool, or at the bakery especially. He tends to hang out at around those places, or the school where he can help some of the younger kids. His friends are all normal kids. That's all I got; hope you can solve this."

Iceman and I turn away and whisper to each other. "Right, so, we've got places of interest, do you have his address?" I ask. Iceman lifts his right arm; a holographic map of the town appears on his armband with a dot at George's home.

"We got a plan for when we get in there?" Iceman asks.

"Let's see what the agents have, we can find a way to fit ourselves in the plan," I reply. We turn around and find Coulson and a small group of six soldiers gearing up. I can see actual bullets in their guns. "Uh, what's up with the bullets, I thought this was a rescue mission?"

"That's our primary objective, yes. But for all we know George could be holding the town hostage." Coulson says as he checks the ammo in his pistol.

"Wait, 'holding the town hostage'? We have firsthand knowledge that he's probably the nicest guy around." I argue.

Coulson just looks at me with exasperation. "Kid, live rounds are a must for any mission, even rescue missions. Also, for all we know his mutation could've caused an intense shift in personality," Before I could argue Coulson and his men began to walk to the town. "C'mon, we're wasting time arguing."

Iceman and I look at each other before following the SHIELD agents. As we near the town I notice a field around it, strange, it creates a perfect dome surrounding the town. Dude's got some range; I'll give him that.

We enter the town. Are you fucking kidding me? Why does it have to be a ghost town? It's March for crying out loud, October isn't for another seven months. The agents walk in a V formation, with Coulson in the center. We hear a noise come from the gas station, all the agents jerk in that direction and aim their non-lethal weapons at the noise.

I tap into Jean's abilities and place a telekinetic shield around myself. Iceman and I carefully walk to the gas station, another noise sounds, reminds me of footsteps. Iceman slowly opens the door; I stand right behind him ready to act. As soon as the door opens, we notice that we can't see anyone, but whoever made the noise is still in here, we can hear them.

The unknown is at the other side of the station, nearby the slushie machines. Iceman and I separate and move to the machines from opposite sides of the store, hoping to trap whoever else is in here between the two of us. Holy hell, it is tense, reminds me of a horror movie. Ah, stop that, you'll only succeed in freaking yourself out. We reach either side of the last aisle, our target is just around the corner.

We jump out of our spots, ready to hold them down, our target screams in fear and throws their slushie at me, thank you Jean for telekinesis. I throw the airborne slushie to my right and see that our target happens to be George himself, good work team, high fives all around.

"Oh, oh, I am so sorry. I thought you were one of them." George thanks breathlessly. Wait, one of them? Are we in a zombie apocalypse? Do his powers create a localized zombie apocalypse!? Is that cool or scary?

Iceman vocalizes my thoughts. "Wait, 'them'? Who the hell is 'them'?"

Before George could answer an agent calls us outside. We exit the station and find something very surprising: the SHIELD agents have their own George, this one in different clothing.

Everyone stopped and stared at each other in surprise, except for the Georges. The moment they saw each other they started to freak out. I-I what? Did I hit my head at some point? No, wait, maybe he can clone himself. Yeah, that explains it. New question: why are they freaking out?

I jump in front of our George to try and calm him down, kinda worked. Iceman and I looked at each other and nodded, we led our George away, the further away they got from each other the calmer they became.

"Okay, that happened. George, the fuck was that?" I ask him. He doesn't answer immediately, right, any form of aggravation causes him to clam up, I guess seeing yourself would qualify. "Ice, I'm gonna talk with Coulson, see if his George is…calm."

Iceman stays with our George and attempts to calm him down. I head to the agents and find that their George is calmer than ours, Coulson sees me and walks my way. "Do we have any idea what just happened?" Coulson questioned.

"I have no idea dude. At first, I thought clones, but two things don't add up, they freaked out when they saw each other, and they're wearing different clothes. We should check out the rest of the town, see how everyone else is." I reply, mind still reeling from that little show.

Coulson nods in response. We walk over to his George, I speak first. "Hey, uh…George. How are ya?"

George has a light smile on his face. "I'm fine, thank you for asking. How are you?"

"Intrigued, its not every day you get to see someone freak out when he sees himself, you don't have a twin brother by any chance?" I question.

He shakes his head. "No, I-I don't know how this all started, to be honest, Yesterday I woke up and saw me everywhere I looked, my friends and family nowhere to be found. Are they okay?"

"We don't know, we were hoping you'd answer that, George." Coulson says.

Before the questioning could go any further, we noticed that one of the SHIELD agents was surrounded by a cloud. Everyone stood at attention, ready to act at a moments notice. Once the cloud dissipated what we saw next surprised all of us. The SHIELD agent became a George in SHIELD gear. I blink, my brain stops working. What. The. Fuck.

SHIELD George turns around and makes eye contact with the other George, they scream and freak out. Considering the fact that SHIELD George is fully armed the agents tackle him and wrench his weapons away from him. We separate the Georges, again. I look at Coulson and just point in Iceman's direction, he nods.

As soon as they see me, they come jogging towards me. "What was that noise?" George asks.

I have no idea how to answer that. "It was a, uh YouTube video! I was showing the other guy a scary video."

George looks at me skeptically, he then turns around and heads back to the gas station. "I left a mess back there, I'm gonna go clean it." He explains.

The moment he enters the doors I rub my forehead and sigh deeply. "One of the SHIELD agents turned into another George. My guess is that George's power allows him to transform people into himself, for all we know we've never even met the actual George."

Iceman just stares at me blankly for a minute, can't blame him, this is one bizarre adventure. Heh, bizarre adventure. I grab Iceman by the shoulder and lead him to George's house, may as well go to the source of all this strangeness.

Iceman eventually finds his voice. "Wait, how do we know we won't suddenly become Georges?" Shit, that's a really good question. I just shrug as we continue to walk to George-Prime's home.

We reach his home and find a George in dad clothes, white cargo shorts, flip flops, and a Hawaiian shirt lounging on a lawn chair, taking in whatever sun he can from the George sphere. We walk up to him, as he notices us, he stands up, walks to the edge of his fence and holds his hand out.

We each shake his hand. "Hello there! What brings you to our humble town?" He asks enthusiastically.

"We're here to see George, uh, George-Prime." Bobby asks.

The George looks at us with an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "I don't know anything about this 'Prime' business, but I'm George, how can I help?"

"Uh, excuse us sir, my friend and I need to have a quick conversation," I pull Iceman away from Dad George. "Okay, best course of action would be to avoid asking where George is, they all believe themselves to be George, it'd make things confusing."

"Can't you use your telepathy and see their memories?" Iceman asks. I facepalm, holy hell I am an idiot. I do exactly that, doesn't work out well.

"Problem, I just scanned everyone's brains, they all have George's memories." I say.

We go back to Dad George, who was patiently waiting for us to finish our conversation. "You two ready to talk?"

"Yeah, sir, my friend and I are part of the X-Men. We believe there might be a mutant in your home, would you mind if we checked it out?" I ask.

Dad George smiles. "Of course not, come on in, friends!" He opens the gate to his fence and leads us inside. In the living room we find two other Georges playing together, one wearing some childish clothing, the other wearing skinny jeans and slim hoodie. Strange, these Georges aren't freaking out when they see each other. We go upstairs and find another George in what looks to be an office, this one wearing business attire, a suit and a dress.

Iceman and I look at each other and realize, this must be George's family, which is why they aren't freaking out. My guess, the closer the people are pre-George the better the relationship post-George. Dad George shows us each room as we go through his house, once we hit George-Prime's room we find it empty. Shit, he must've gotten away.

Iceman and I thank Dad George and leave to meet up with Coulson and his agents. Once we arrive, we find that Coulson and one of his agents are the only ones left, the other five are tied around a telephone pole, unconscious.

"Hey, we've figured out what's going on-" I start.

"George has the power to transform others into himself, but in doing so the new Georges don't know how to react to the other Georges, all based on their relationship pre-transformation." Coulson finished.

We stare at him in mild surprise, Iceman then comes up with a suggestion. "Why don't we take them out of the sphere, maybe they'd change back." Iceman says hopefully.

"We tried that; the sphere won't allow them to leave. The only way to stop this is to find the real George and have him stop all of this, or else we become Georges ourselves." Coulson explains.

"Makes sense. Do we know the order of things, like, does being in here long start the transformation? Or does there have to be a series of events? That'd make more sense." I begin to brainstorm, while doing this I accidentally activate my telepathy and realize another presence encroaching upon our minds. My head jerks up, everyone else stares at me. "George's presence slowly takes over your own mental presence, the stronger your will, the longer you last. Your agent's next, then you Coulson, Iceman, and me."

The agent has a look of fear on his face. "W-what? How long?"

"He's about," I scan his mind for a moment. "eighty four percent through with you. Get out of here, the three of us can handle this." The agent hurries out of the field. It's now down to the three of us to solve the George Mystery. "Coulson, fifty four percent. Iceman, twenty percent."

Coulson readies his non-lethal weapon. "You two check out his home?"

"He was long gone by the time we got there. Was thinking about checking out the swimming pool." Bobby answers.

Coulson nods and begins to walk to the swimming pool. On the way we find a small number of Georges, all scared to walk out in the open, for fear of finding other Georges. We reach the swimming pool and surprisingly find a George there, sitting in the lifeguard tower, please be George-Prime, please.

"George West?" Coulson cautiously calls.

He looks down at us in response, so far so good. He climbs down the ladder and introduces himself to us. "Nice to meet you, the name's George. The actual one." I sense his mind to notice that he's telling the truth.

I shake his hand. "Nice to finally meet you George, you can call me Mimic, this is Iceman, and agent Phil Coulson." I look at Phil and find a George in Phil's clothing. The hell? But George's presence was barely above fifty percent, how?

"The process happens faster the closer they are to me, that's why my family's shift was near immediate." George explains. Oh crap, I scan Iceman's mind to find that George's presences has jumped up a whole thirty two percent, putting Iceman at the fifty two percent area.

This is not good, not good at all. "George, dude, we need you to stop. What's happening is causing people's lives to change drastically." I plead. George just looks at me before sighing. I don't like the look of this.

"The world is a cruel place, but, if everyone's like me then the world will get better, I'll become the greatest hero to ever live!" George exclaims excitedly. Dammit, Coulson was right, this was George's doing, or maybe his power corrupted him, I really hope it's the second one.

"George, we understand, I mean, we're mutants, we don't have an easy life. But this is wrong man, you have to see that. Be the George that we've heard about, the one who would help people, not the one who would forcefully change people." Iceman says.

George just keeps the hard look on his face. "Why can't you see it? I'm trying to fix things. You two are heroes, you of all people should understand, please, stop fighting it, just let me do this."

"Dude, I understand where you're coming from, there are a lot of bad people out there, but its better to deal with them the right way. Forcibly changing them into something else isn't going to help." I argue. I can see his face falter, good. That means we're getting to him.

"Join us, at Xavier's School, there you can learn to really help people. You don't have to be a member of the X-Men to do so." Iceman says. George sighs, he then snaps his fingers. For a moment my heart stopped, I thought he sped up the process, in fact the sphere disappeared, Coulson and everyone else in town turned back to normal.

"Can I really help people if I go to your school?" George asks.

Iceman and I do our handshake. Mission complete.

* * *

A couple of hours later the SHIELD agents are putting their gear away, while this is happening Coulson walks up to us. "Thanks for your help you two, and sorry about doubting you earlier, I see now that that was a mistake."

"It's all cool man, water under the bridge." Iceman says. I nod in agreement.

Coulson then looks around to see if anyone's listening before leaning in to whisper. "I'd really appreciate it if you never told anyone that I turned into a George near the end of that."

Iceman and I do a zipper motion with our mouths. Satisfied, Coulson joins the convoy, they leave shortly after. After a few minutes the Blackbird lands, out comes Cyclops, Forge, and Professor X.

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. West, my name is Charles Xavier, I'd like to talk about your son's future." Professor X begins.

A few hours later we arrive at the mansion, with George coming along. Scott, the Professor, and George go to the Professor's office to finalize George's registration. Bobby and I, tired from that mind-boggling ordeal go to the recreational area and flop onto the couches, sinking into them.

Jean and Hank walk up to the couch. "Nolan, Bobby, Move. Hank and I called the couch for the next hour." No reply. Jean pokes their cheeks, no response. Listening carefully, one could hear light snoring coming from Bobby, the two were fast asleep.

* * *

**And there's the first chapter to the X Arc, tell me what you think. One thing I've been worrying about is whether or not I've been properly writing the character, you'll tell me if I am, right? But yeah, that was the first chapter of my next arc, these chapters are meant to establish the relationships between Nolan and his fellow X-Men. Thanks for reading, stay tuned next week for the next chapter!**


	7. X-Untouchable

**Second chapter of my second arc, let's a go. Thank you for coming this far, I really appreciate it, without you deciding to read this I don't think I would continue this story. Y'know, when looking at the arcs I have planned and how many chapters I plan for each arc I realize that this is going to be a massive story at some point. I do hope you'll stick around. That's enough from me for now, enjoy the story!**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Cyclops: Untouchable **

Two weeks have passed since the whole George event, gotta say, dude's pretty cool. Forge and Hank have made some breakthroughs in reverse engineering the materials from my armor, soon the entirety of the X-Men will have better combat suits.

Right now, we have a group project to do in history, Sonya and I team up for this one. But during class Logan and I get a message from the Professor. _'Logan, Nolan's presence is needed in the mission room immediately.'_ Logan and I make eye contact, when he nods, I turn to Sonya.

"Hey, sorry to run off but I just got a message from the Professor, X-Men business, you know." I apologize.

Sonya just smiles. "It's cool man, be sure to bring a souvenir for me?"

"For sure." I say. I exit the classroom and head to the mission room. On my way I find Jean and Ororo in the lobby, leading the younger kids around. I wave at the group as I walk by them.

Entering the mission room, I find just Scott, in his suit, and the Professor. "Nolan, thank you for coming as soon as possible," The Professor begins. "This next mission is simple. Unus the Untouchable has resurfaced. Cyclops will apprehend Unus, you will provide back up."

As I'm being told this, holographic screens appear in front of me. Damn, dude is massive, but that name 'Unus the Untouchable', how the fuck am I supposed to take him seriously? Doesn't help that he's currently escaping from a bank robbery, that's small fry stuff. I lean forward and look at Cyclops as I remember something from our second meeting. "You said the best way to beat Unus," I stop and let out a little snort. "Sorry. The best way to beat this guy is with indirect attacks, right?"  
Cyclops has a proud look on his face as he nods. "Glad you remembered that. Yes, Because Ororo and Jean are busy with the younger students you'll be my back up. The plan is simple: blow up the area around him or hit him when he least expects it."

"There are more ways to beat him?" I question. They made the indirect approach sound so sure back in November.

Cyclops expands the 'Powers' section of Unus's database. "His shield is impenetrable from either side, meaning he can't properly function if it's constantly on."

Ah, got it. Since the cameras show him holding bags of money, I'd wager to say that his shields around his hands are either thin, compared to the rest of his body, or aren't there to begin with. "Alright, let me go get ready."

A few minutes later Cyclops and I are in one of the cars, seeing as Unus's current crime was only twenty minutes away by driving. I turn to Cyclops as I constantly shift between the powers of the X-Men, my eyes glow red, then claws pop out of my knuckles, then my right arm becomes encased in ice. "So, who's powers do you need for this little mission?"

He takes a left turn; we begin to hear gunfire from the distance. "Something that can deal with explosions, Bobby or Jean's powers would probably be best," We stop a few feet behind the police cars. We exit our car and walk to one of the cops. "Cyclops, this here is Mimic. How can we help?" He holds out his hand, the cop shakes it without any hint of disdain.

"Yuri Watanabe, nice to finally get some help. It's weird, he hasn't moved much, the bank's just a block down. Something's up with this." The officer says.

Cyclops nods. "Right, thank you for that, Mimic and I'll check it out, see if you can't get your people to back up, things are about to get loud."

Walking forward we hear plenty of cops make racist remarks about us, but at the moment we don't care, we're here to help them take down Unus. While choosing some powers to tap into I decide to use Shinji's powers. Remember the dude that can reverse time on inanimate objects within a five-hour time frame? That's who I'm talking about.

We walk for another minute and see Unus surrounded by cops, all of them shooting at Unus, but his shield makes all of the attacks useless. Unus sees us and laughs manically. "Ah, yes! The X-Men are finally here, and I see you didn't bring you blue-furred friend with you. Was he too scared to come?" Unus taunted.

On the way here I read up on Unus. Hank made a machine that super-boosted Unus's shield, suffocating him, the machine was somehow destroyed during Sinister's attack on the mansion. While he continued to taunt Cyclops, Unus finally took notice of me. "Who is this? A new X-Man for your pitiful crusade?"

Cyclops blasts the ground to Unus's right, the force of the explosion sends Unus flying, with some debris managing to get past his shield. I use my powers and reverse time on the debris, fixing the damage from the attack. I turn around and see Cyclops continue to fire at Unus, but something was off. The cops told us the Unus barely moved from his starting point, now the dude's running around like a headless chicken.

Unus turns the corner, Cyclops and I follow. Cyclops fires blasts around Unus, I continue to fix the damage, it's a good thing there aren't any civilians out. This tedious chase continues for another three minutes, Cyclops and I look at each other and realize that this is all a game, or we're being distracted.

We stop chasing after Unus, it takes a minute, but when he realizes that we've stopped running he also stops and turns around. "What's wrong X-Men? Too tired to 'do what's right'?" Unus taunted.

"What do you think he's trying to cover?" Cyclops whispers.

I look around for anything out of the ordinary and find nothing. "Maybe he's leading us to an ambush, there's nothing of importance here that I can see." I reply.

Cyclops nods and subtly looks around, it's easier for him considering the whole visor thing. "Makes sense, but who would he lead us to? There's never been any history of Unus working with anyone else."

"It's also possible that he's trying to lead us away from something, maybe he's a distraction." I say.

Cyclops taps his earpiece. "Captain, is there any other crime being committed at the moment?"

_"Who is this? How did you get on this frequency?" _The police captain on site demanded.

"It's Cyclops, it doesn't matter how I got a hold of you. Mimic and I would like to know if there are any other crimes being committed." Cyclops replied.

We hear some orders being barked out from the captain, after some time we finally get a reply. "No, this freakshow's the only problem we got right now." The captain says.

"Hm. Okay, thank you for your assistance, Cyclops out," Cyclops turns to look at me. "This still doesn't rule out the distraction possibility. It's also entirely possible that he's trying to lead us somewhere, a trap of some kind."

A bag of money comes flying at us. We dodge and see a ticked off Unus screaming at us to pay attention to him. Huh, if you're gonna rob a bank you'd keep whatever money you have left, no? And the fact that he wants us to pay attention to him is a cry for help if I've ever heard one.

"What do we do boss?" I ask Cyclops.

"We play his game, see where he's leading us, once we arrive at our destination, we take him out and investigate whatever he's so excited for us to see." Cyclops replies.

Cyclops and I resume our hunt of Unus. Our target has a smile on his face before he turns around and runs again, continuing this chase of ours. After another five minutes Unus jumps down an already open manhole cover, great, I love the sewers. We jump down and see Unus turn a corner, we follow him and see two hallways, Unus is nowhere to be seen.

His plan was more than likely to separate Cyclops and I, then to take me down first considering the fact that I'm the new guy, too bad for him, cause John's tracking skills are top notch, more so than even Logan's in some cases.

Looking around to gather clues I find out that Unus had gone down the left hallway, I run down it, Cyclops following me. I keep up the tracking, but over time I realize that while tracking Unus another set of footprints disappeared, I look behind me and notice that Cyclops is missing. I stop running and look around, nothing indicating he was taken. I try to track him down but come up with nothing as well. Time to go old school.

"Cyclops, where are you!" I shout into the tunnels. I get no response, unsurprisingly. I look around and see nothing of importance in the tunnel, making my decision I decide to continue down the trail, hoping to find Cyclops and Unus, hopefully in that order.

* * *

Cyclops and Mimic stop in front of a split in the sewer, after some time Mimic runs to the left, Cyclops following closely behind. Mimic continues to run ahead of Cyclops, Cyclops blinks, Mimic is now gone. Cyclops stops running and looks around, Mimic is nowhere to be found.

"Mimic, where are you!" Cyclops shouts. He gets no response, no surprise there. A noise comes from the tunnel. _'May as well check that out.' _Cyclops thought. Continuing down the tunnel Cyclops noticed that something was off, as if someone else was here. Swiftly turning around Cyclops fires a blast, forcing Unus back by a few feet.

"I'm impressed Cyclops, I thought it would take longer for you to realize where I was." Unus taunted.

"Where's Mimic? And who are you working with, this whole thing is way above your level." Cyclops replied.

Unus growled at the insult before quickly regaining a calm composure. He then walks around Cyclops, like a shark ready to attack. While Unus circles him, Cyclops looks at all of the angles in the tunnel, coming up with multiple ways to attack Unus. "At first, I didn't believe this plan would work, but now, now it looks like everything will work out fine." Unus said.

_'Plan? He can't be the only one, the most thought out plan Unus has ever had was when we first fought him, and that plan was half-baked from the get-go.' _Cyclops thought. Something else was off, Cyclops could feel another presence in his head, and this presence was oily, malicious, nothing like the Professor's. "You have a telepath with you," Unus's look of triumph quickly became one of surprise. "I'd say this telepath is the mastermind behind all of this. Hm, 'mastermind', he's your partner, isn't he, Mastermind?"

Unus roared as he rushed towards Cyclops. Unus attempted a right hook, Cyclops raised his arm to block the attack, he then fired at the ground, knocking both himself and Unus away from each other. Unus ran towards Cyclops and attempted a drop kick, Cyclops dodges to the side and hits Unus in the chest with a blast, launching Unus into the opposite wall.

While Unus is slightly dazed Cyclops fires a beam at the wall around Unus, dropping rocks atop Unus, trapping him. Another noise comes from down the tunnel, Cyclops resumes his investigation of the noise. While running Cyclops hears the rubble shift, shortly afterwards a pair of footsteps comes running at the leader of the X-Men. Turning around Cyclops fires at the ground again, forcing Unus further back. "Dammit Cyclops! You know you can't keep this up forever!" Unus shouted.

Cyclops ignores Unus and continues to run down the tunnel. As he gets closer to the sound Cyclops notices a light, getting closer Cyclops finds himself in a large room within the sewers, computers lining the walls, a punching bag hanging in one of the corners, and two beds. _'I was right, Unus isn't alone in this.'_ Cyclops thought triumphantly. Jumping down Cyclops destroyed the computers with an optic blast, but he left one intact for later.

Unus roared in rage as he jumped down to the room. "What are you doing!?" Unus demanded.

"Destroying your stuff, I thought it was obvious," Cyclops answered nonchalantly, further enraging Unus. "So, where's Mastermind, I've been feeling his presence in my head for a while now. Now that I think about it, he's been in my head the moment Mimic disappeared, meaning Mimic could possibly be here as well, Mastermind just made sure we couldn't acknowledge each other."

Unus picks up a chair and throws it at Cyclops, Cyclops blasts it out of the sky. "Look at you, Mr. Big Brain, would you like a cookie?" Unus mocked. He then flipped the table, launching all of the food at Cyclops. Cyclops blasted the food out of the way, but Unus used this as cover, seeing as he rushed at Cyclops while the food was flying, he then hit the X-Men leader in the gut and sent him flying into the wall.

Cyclops wipes the small trail of blood coming from the corner of his mouth. Seeing that Unus was close to the punching bag Cyclops blasts it, the bag smacks into Unus, knocking him to the ground. While he was on the ground Cyclops fired a continuous blast at Unus, trapping him in place.

Suddenly, Mastermind flies into Cyclops's energy blast. Cyclops stops and blinks in surprise at the sudden appearance of Unus's ally, the room shimmers slightly, after the shimmering is complete more damage appears, and Mimic is seen nearby one of the walls, in his ice form.

"Oh, hey Cyclops, you would not believe what just happened." Mimic said.

* * *

Continuing down the sewer tunnel I hear a noise in the distance, considering the fact that I have nothing else to do I may as well check it out. While running down the tunnel I notice another presence in my mind, Unus has a telepath as an ally.

I should go back a bit. Remember when Sonya said to join the X-Men you needed to take extra courses? Well, telepathic defense with the Professor is one of theses courses. The others include combat training with Logan, tactics with Scott, shop with Forge, and an all-around course with John. Thanks to the telepathic defense class our minds are harder to read, and we're capable of telling when someone is in our head, most of the time, some of the more skilled telepaths, like the Professor, could still sneak into our heads without us knowing, terrifying thought, really. But our mental defenses aren't all powerful, someone with enough power and skill can still mess with our heads, or break through the mental defenses, this guy fits the bill in the former category.

I swap to my telepathic powers and release a burst of telepathic energy, forcing Unus's ally out of my head. Okay, his ally's powerful, but not as powerful as the Professor, it's also possible that my telepathic burst came out of left field for him, meaning it'll be harder to do the same thing later.

"_Well, that's one hell of a surprise." _A male voice says telepathically.

I look around for the telepath, he's hiding, good. If this guy had more than telepathy then he would be sure to show his face, but the fact that he's hiding means that this isn't his first time fighting. _"If you want a real surprise you should come out of hiding." _I knew he wouldn't show himself; I'm just doing this to try and figure out his location.

He laughs. _"Please, as if taunts from a child would be effective against me, don't you know who I am?" _

_ "Nope, should I know who you are?" _Honestly, I have no idea who this guy is, I should read more of the files we have on our enemies, huh?

The man lets out a noise of shock. _"I am the great Mastermind! Of the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy, Magneto's go to telepath!" _Yeesh, sounds like I insulted the guy. Wait, did he say, 'Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy'? Oh shit, if these guys are back things are about to become more difficult. _"Now, who are you? I don't remember seeing you in our last battle with the X-Men."_

I could answer, be polite, but that could bite me in the ass. It's entirely possible that Mastermind could get a message to Magneto about me, making our next battle against the Brotherhood even more difficult. Let's face it, the Brotherhood is going to come back at some point, and when they do my powers need to be kept under wraps for as long as possible. Screw it, won't tell him.

_"Sorry mate, not as pompous as you are, my identity will stay with me, codename and all." _I can feel Mastermind become angry, good. A sharp pain originates from my head, almost like someone hit my brain with a battering ram. Damn, the hell was that? Another sharp pain happens, I quickly realize that I'm in a telepathic battle, that is so cool.

I push back, causing Mastermind to back up, while he's recovering, I attack his psychic barrier with a barrage of my own, like catapults launching huge rocks at a castle wall. I lean on the wall as I continue down the tunnel, the noise is still going on. My barrier is then hit with an attack from psychic cannons, I wince, both in pain and the loud noise from the attack.

I reach the end of the tunnel and find a large room, computers lining one of the walls, a punching bag hanging in one of the corners and two beds, looks like I found their lair. I hit Mastermind with a flurry of psychic missiles, I can feel his defense weakening.

I limp towards the railing overlooking the room and find Mastermind on one of the computers, concentrating greatly, I can tell our battle is doing a lot on him, considering all of the sweat on his face. Mastermind's a pretty old dude, I'd say he's in his forties, he has brown hair in a ponytail, a mustache and is wearing a trench coat.

I double my efforts, his psychic barrier collapses, as soon as it does, I hit him with a brain blast. He jumps out of his seat, leans on the desk for support and breaths heavily for a moment. I swap to my ice powers and ice up; I jump down the railing. Once I land, he turns around and looks at me in shock.

"W-what? First telepathy now Iceman's powers? What is this?" Mastermind asked. He was totally out of it, he couldn't stand straight, so he has to lean on the computers, and his breathing is labored. Damn, dude is way out of shape, he should know, you can't always rely on your powers.

I run at Mastermind, ready to punch the shit out of him. Mastermind just smirks as he reaches into his coat, shit, did I fall into his trap? Nope, he just pulled out a gun, was worried there for a second. He shoots at me; the bullets just bounce off of me. I punch but he dodges out of the way, so I break one of the computers instead. He backs up into a wall, I swing again, he dodges again, this time I break off a chunk of the wall.

Fun fact about Bobby's powers: in his ice form his strength is increased three-fold, of course he can augment his strength, and so can I. So, I increase my strength five-fold, meaning I could easily break, but not kill, Mastermind, if he'd stop moving so damn much. The dude was tired as fuck a minute ago, I swear.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice the punching bag begin to swing in place, that's weird why would it-? Cyclops, he must be fighting Unus in the same spot, Mastermind here is still stopping our senses from acknowledging one another.

How do I stop this mind-fuckery? Oh, right. I just gotta punch the crap outta him, that should stop whatever's going on. I do a swiping motion with my right arm, creating a sheet of ice on the ground that quickly rises into a blunt end that hits Mastermind in the chest, he flies into a wall. Before he can recover, I slide along the ground to his right and punch him in the side of the face, the illusion is dropped and I see Mastermind fly into Cyclops's concussive beam, one down one to go.

Cyclops and Unus both stop and stare at Mastermind for a moment, the two then look at me in surprise. "Oh, hey Cyclops, you would not believe what just happened." I say.

Unus gets off of the ground and runs at me, ready to hit me with a right hook. I quickly swap to Cyclops's powers, the both of us trap Unus with our combined concussive blasts from either side. While this happens, I notice a purple glow from Unus, and its getting stronger. That must be his shield, were we damaging it, he must be strengthening it, that has to be why we can see it now, right?

Cyclops apparently has the same thoughts going through his head, because he strengthens his attack, I do the same thing, the purple glow from Unus also strengthens. If one were to look in they'd see a light show of red and purple. After five minutes of keeping up a constant attack we hear what sounds like glass cracking, Unus's shield eventually shatters, we couldn't stop our attack in time, so Unus was trapped between two concussive beams of pure force for about two seconds.

Ceasing our attack Cyclops and I walk to Unus's slightly smoking body, Unus groans in pain before going unconscious. Cyclops and I look at each other and fist bump. "Nicely done, Mimic, knew you'd do great." Cyclops praises. He then walks to the only intact computer and places a usb into it, after a short moment the red light on the usb turns green.

I scratch the back of my head sheepishly. "Thanks, Cyke, couldn't have done it without you," I pick up Unus, Cyclops picks up Mastermind. We exit the sewer and find the police waiting for us. "Oh, hey guys, we brought some presents." I hand Unus to Watanabe.

Before Cyclops could hand over Mastermind a blur of blue and silver appears out of nowhere, once the blur leaves, we realize that Mastermind is also gone. "The hell was that?" The police captain demanded. He, and the other cops, are in a circular formation with their guns out, ready to shoot the blur should it come again.

I look around and find that Unus is still here. Hm, looks like whoever grabbed Mastermind saw Unus as nothing more than a one-time tool. "That, was one of Mastermind's allies, he's long gone captain, at least we still have Unus." Cyclops answers.

The police get out of formation, but their guard is still up. "Damn, well, thanks for capturing this guy, the help is appreciated." The captain replies as he shakes our hands.

"Of course, captain, any time you need help just know that the X-Men are one call away. If you'll excuse us, Mimic and I need to return to base." Cyclops replies. The captain says his final goodbyes before his convoy of police go their way to whatever prison Unus is going to.

"How're they gonna hold Unus, depowering collars? Would seem hard to put on when someone's untouchable." I ask.

Cyclops starts the car and begins the drive back to the mansion. "The Professor told us that new prisons are being constructed, specifically for supervillains, they're calling them Ryker's Island, The Vault, and The Cube. Unus is probably going to Ryker's, that one's the closest to completion."

I nod, makes sense, supervillains are becoming more and more common, superheroes are too, I heard that some demon with a flaming skull on a motorcycle was seen travelling across the United States, and some vigilante called 'Moon Knight' in New York. There's another guy called Luke Cage, he's been seen teaming up with Iron Fist, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, and a black haired woman with super strength. The world's getting weird.

"Mastermind said he was a part of the Brotherhood, so, was that blue and silver blur also a member of the Brotherhood?" I question.

Cyclops nods. "Yeah, the blur's name is Quicksilver, he's one of the more dangerous members of the Brotherhood. If anything, I'd say he's Magneto's right hand. See, his twin sister, the Scarlet Witch, and he are Magneto's children, that makes them his greatest supporters."

"Got it. Why'd Mastermind come back now? Why team up with Unus, and why did Quicksilver rescue him now? Something big's coming man, I'd say the Brotherhood's coming back." I say. It makes, sense. No one's seen the Brotherhood in like a year, and two of their members, one being Magneto's own kid, suddenly appear, something's off.

We arrive at the school. Exiting the car, we see Jean and the Professor waiting for us. "So, how'd it go you two?" Jean asks.

"We got Unus," Before the two could congratulate us I continue. "But Mastermind was also there."

Their faces quickly drop into concerned frowns. "Are you two okay?" The Professor asks.

Jean hands Cyclops his glasses, he takes off his visor and cowl and puts his glasses on. "Yeah, but that's not all. Before we could hand Mastermind over to the police Quicksilver took him away."

The Professor and Jean both have shocked looks on their faces. "This is cause for concern. And what of Unus, was he taken as well." The Professor questions.

"No, Quicksilver only came for Mastermind. Which leads to another question: why did Mastermind team up with Unus, was their a point to today's events?" I wonder.

"We shall focus more on this later, I imagine that the two of you are rather tired, Unus is a rather tedious opponent." The Professor says. He exits the garage with Jean, leaving Cyclops and I in the garage.

Now that I think about it, my eyes do hurt, most likely because of that barrage Cyclops and I hit Unus with. I rub my eyes and GODDAMN DOES THAT HURT LIKE A BITCH! Cyclops laughs as I recoil in pain. "Yeah, same thing happened to me when I first used my powers like that. The trick is to blink rapidly for a minute straight, Nolan."

I follow Scott's advice, lo and behold, the pain begins to subside. "Thanks man. Now what? Do we file a report, or something?"

Scott places a hand on my shoulder. "Now, now we head to the recreational area, where I can destroy you in ping pong."

I fix Scott with a blank stare. "Are you sure about that? Only a fool is so sure of victory from an enemy he knows nothing about."

"C'mon Nolan, I've known you for like four months now, and if there is one thing, I know about you, it's that you can't play ping pong to save your life." Scott taunts.

I growl. "We'll see about that, oh, fearless leader."

The two of us play ping pong for a while. No, I won't tell you who won.

* * *

**And there we go with chapter two of arc two, what'd you think? So, yeah, I'm already planting the seeds for future arcs, hell, I've been doing that since the beginning. Weirdly enough, this chapter took a while to make, I wasn't as motivated to write this one as I was to write the last one, hopefully that will change. Yeah, I don't have much to say now, again, thank you for reading and please leave constructive criticism, stay awesome!**

**Also, you've noticed that I will switch up the names of the X-Men, sometimes he's Scott, other times he's Cyclops, for example. The point of that is to show a change in character, in my opinion when in the field Cyclops should be called Cyclops, not Scott, if you were confused about that sorry it took so long for me to explain.**


	8. X-Way Down We Go

**AHHH! Chapter eight! Don't know why but I wanna put musical references in the titles, so musical references you shall get. Also, I know I say this a lot, but thank you for reading this story of mine, it really means a lot to me, as I've said before: the X-Men are my favorite superhero team, so this story really means a lot to me. Time to get started.**

**Also, if you find any grammar mistakes could you please tell me? I'd greatly appreciate it, thank you.**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Wolverine: Way Down We Go**

Life is good. Sonya and I destroyed our history project, we talked about Captain America and the Howling Commandos, and their contributions to the Allies. Logan gave us an A, I was kinda surprised, who knew Logan could give grades above B minuses. Right now, it's a nice Saturday afternoon in the beautiful month of April, I'm sitting in a lawn chair at the back of the school, enjoying the weather.

I can hear other students playing, older students playing sports, younger students running around playing a combination of tag and hide-and-seek. I sigh in content, yeah, life is good. I lean back and close my eyes, daydreaming about how great life is.

I feel a shadow fall over me. "Get up kid, I need your help."

I open my eyes and find Logan standing over me. He's in his Wolverine suit, although, his cowl isn't on. I notice my suitcase with my suit in his right hand, he throws it on my chest, knocking the wind out of my chest. "What the hell, man? It's Saturday, why can't you ask Hank or John for help?" I cough.

"Your 'particular set of skills' is needed for this." Logan turns around and heads toward the door, walking around some kids as they run in his path.

I follow after him, jumping around as I put on my pants. "Alright, what do you need help with?" I groan. I hop on one foot as I put on my left boot, I use telekinesis to keep the suitcase afloat, after putting on my left boot I do the same to my right boot.

Logan gets into the elevator and pushes the button to the underground area of the mansion. "I had a dream last night. One of my memories I'd say, I only got bits and pieces, but I remember seeing Mister Sinister in it."

Right, if this memory involves Mister Sinister, I would be the best choice to deal with this. We exit the elevator and go straight to the hangar. Wait, why aren't we going to the mission room? Is this not an X-Men designated mission, are we hijacking the Blackbird? Sweet.

"I, uh, I noticed that the Professor isn't here to tell us more about our mission, neither is Scott." I say as I finally put on my right glove, finishing putting on my suit.

Logan puts on his cowl as he lowers the ramp of the Blackbird, we get in the seats and prepare for lift-off, well, Logan does, I'm just sitting in the co-pilot's seat. "No, they aren't. This is a private matter, don't worry, we won't get in any trouble." Logan says.

The radio comes to life. _"Uh, excuse me? Who said you could take the Blackbird? I still have to finish the repairs from Ororo, Warren, and John's last mission." _Forge says worriedly.

I give Logan a blank stare. "What did you say? 'We won't get in any trouble'? Cause it looks like we're kinda getting in trouble." I mock.

The roof above us splits, as the Blackbird rises, we see the Professor glaring at us, Forge at his side. The Professor leans towards Forge's arm. _"Logan, would you care to explain what it is you are doing? And why you have Nolan with you?" _The Professor interrogates.

"Taking the Blackbird to Canada, Chuck," Logan explains. I look at him in surprise. Canada? Why are we going all the way up there? "I think one of my memories came back, Sinister was in it, should explain why the kid's coming with me."

The Professor sighs. _"Next time, tell me before you decide to leave." _The radio turns off. Logan points the Blackbird north and pushes the throttle all the way forward, launching the Blackbird forward at high speeds.

Logan isn't one to hold conversation, so it's pretty awkward as we fly. I decide to begin talking. "So, Canada, is that where our destination is?"

Logan grunts in the affirmative. I wait for him to elaborate but get nothing in response. Yup, total wordsmith, this guy. I mentally sigh, Mom always said that anyone can be your friend, you just gotta try hard enough. "I take it you've been up there before, what's it like?"

"Cold." Logan says as he checks the dashboard.

"You live up there before joining the team?" I ask.

"Yeah." Logan sets course for a specific place in Canada, he then puts the Blackbird into autopilot. He gets out of his seat and walks to the back; he pulls out a table from the wall and looks over the gear in his utility belt.

I get out of my seat and walk behind him, looking over his shoulder as he works on some of his equipment. "Are the two of us gonna do this on our own, or should we expect some backup?"

He stops what he's doing to look at me, right, kind of in his personal space. I back up, he goes back to working on his gear. For a moment it's quiet, did he not hear me? Nah, he totally did, dude has enhanced senses, and I was right next to him, he's gotta be ignoring me, rude. He places whatever it is he's working on back into his belt and goes to another pouch, working on whatever was in that one.

"It should be just the two of us, bub, hopefully they won't interfere." Logan says. Who the hell are 'they'? Before we could continue, we began to hit the Canada-US border, as soon as we pass it the radio activates.

_"Unknown vessel, you are entering Canadian airspace, designate your intention now or risk getting shot down." _An authoritative voice demands.

Logan goes to the radio and presses the button to reply. "This is Wolverine of the X-Men, alongside Mimic. We're here for personal business."

_"Logan? What are you coming back for? You know what? Just come to these coordinates, we'll meet you there." _The radio turns off.

Wolverine sighs deeply as he gets back into the pilot's seat. He pulls back the throttle and deactivates the autopilot, the coordinates appear on the screen. Wolverine flies towards the point. "Dammit, was hoping they wouldn't get involved." Wolverine muttered.

"Old friends? That guy did know your name after all. Why don't you want to meet them?" I ask.

Wolverine looks at me as he begins to land the Blackbird. "Reasons, kid."

The Blackbird lands, pushing some buttons the ramp begins to lower. Wolverine and I walk down the ramp once it touches the ground. Looking around I can see that we're at a facility of some sort, this place is probably a checkpoint.

I see a group of people waiting for us, a man in a white and red suit, the red on his left side is stylized with a maple leaf, next is a lime green woman with pure black eyes wearing green clothing that shows off some skin. Next to her is an extremely short, but buff, guy in a black sleeveless suit with an open face cowl, and a large red 'P' on his torso. Next to him are two Natives, the man is rather old looking, in his forties or fifties I'd say, he wears a black and white sleeveless suit, with some fur trimming along his shoulders, there are special designs on the body of his suit, the girl is younger, in her twenties I'd guess, most likely his daughter, she wears a similar suit. Behind them is a giant brown-furred sasquatch, don't really know what else to say.

Wolverine and their leader step forward and shake hands. "It's been a while James, how've you been?" Wolverine says.

Wow, that's the most he's said in an hour. "I'm fine Logan, how are you?" Wolverine shrugs. "And I'd guess that you are Mimic?" The leader walks to me, we shake hands.

"Yes sir, I'm Mimic, newest member of the X-Men, might I ask who you guys are?" Yeah, I know, I 'm coming off as stiff, but c'mon, first impressions are the most important part to a new friendship.

The leader nods and goes back to his group. "I am James Hudson, I also go by Guardian," He points at the giant behind him. "This is Walter Langkowski, Sasquatch," He nods at the green girl. "Marrina Smallwood, she has no codename," He motions to the small guy. "Eugene Judd, he also goes by Puck," He nods at the Natives. "These two are Michael and Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, Shaman and Talisman respectively."

I wave. "Nice to meet you."

"Come, we have another member inside our main building, our recruits should be there as well." James says. We follow him inside the biggest building in this outpost.

There we find three more people, two twins, around the age of sixteen and seventeen, they have black hair and elf ears, cool. They wear black suits, from the chest up it becomes silver, they also have a star on one hip, the guy has the star on his left hip, his sister has the star on her right hip. The third person is a woman in her late twenties to early thirties, she wears a pure white suit with a lot of sharp designs, she has a crown-like ornament on her head.

The moment the three notice us the twins fly around me, looking me up and down. "Hi! Who are you? Are you with the X-Men? Are you and Logan friends? What's it like in the United States? Are you single?" The girl asks in a rush.

I blush at the last one, she is attractive after all, now that I think about it, every woman I've run into since joining the X-Men has been exceedingly attractive, awesome. "My name's Nolan Belmont, or Mimic. Yes, I'm the newest member of the X-Men. Logan and I are…allies. It's pretty cool in the US. And yes, I am single." I reply.

Everyone shares a surprised look; she did say all of that rather fast. Her brother speaks next. "Sorry about that, my sister is a rather excitable person. Jean-Paul Beaubier, or Northstar on the field. My sister is Jeanne-Marie Beaubier, she goes by Aurora. And this lady here is Narya, or Snowbird."

Wolverine turns to James, getting right into business. "I think one of my memories came back, I was in a facility north of here, I need to check it out."

James puts his hand on his chin and thinks for a moment. "Come with us to the meeting room. Kids, stay here."

I go to follow the group but get stopped by Wolverine. "James said 'kids' that includes you."

"Dude, I've fought Mister Sinister, helping you get your memories back should be a cake walk, besides you brought me here because of Mister Sinister." I argue.

Wolverine just shakes his head and goes with the rest of the group, leaving me behind with Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie. I drop onto a couch in the recreational area and begin to brood, Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie float nearby, also brooding. Jeanne-Marie instantly becomes happy again as she looks at me excitedly.

"Did you say you fought Mister Sinister? Dude, that is so cool! What was it like? How strong was he?" She asked as she twirled around in orbit around the couch.

"It was something alright. See, I'm his grandkid, and for some reason his boss ordered my capture, so he kidnaps me and takes me to his island. The X-Men begin a rescue mission and save my ass, Sinister and I fight, and I win. Granted, the X-Men were a great help, especially Storm." I answer.

Jean-Paul looks at me in confusion. "Storm? How did she help?"

I take a deep breath, even remembering that event still causes goosebumps. "She created this giant-ass thundercloud and hit Sinister with the biggest lightning bolt I've ever seen. Hell, Thor came to the school later and offered to train her because of that."

Jeanne-Marie lets out a noise of recognition. "We heard about that; Alpha Flight went to check it out after it was deemed safe."

Alpha Flight, I knew they looked familiar. In the fourth grade we had an assignment on superheroes, one of the kids in my class did his on Alpha Flight, I wasn't paying attention, so I only know the bare minimum of these guys. "Wait, you went to Island Sinister? Did you find him, or anything important?" I question.

Jean-Paul takes a seat on the couch across from me. "No, all we found was rubble, and the bodies of Sinister's clones, nothing of importance."

I nod at that answer before leaning back. "So, you two aren't officially members of Alpha Flight, how old are you?"

Jeanne-Marie floats to my right, she leans really close to me, causing me to blush, she laughs in response. "Why Nolan, don't you know that it's rude to ask a lady her age?" She playfully scolded.

Quick, think fast. "That's why I asked Jean-Paul, it isn't rude to ask another guy his age now is it? The fact that the two of you are twins is just a bonus." I reply. Nice, I mentally pat myself on the back for such a flawless response.

The twins laugh in response. "We're sixteen, turning seventeen next week, actually."

"Cool, cool. So, what are your powers?" I ask.

"As you can already tell we can fly, super speed included." Jean-Paul begins.

"With physical contact," They hold hands. "We gain photokinesis." Jeanne-Marie continues. A flash of light appears from their hands. "What can you do, Nolan?"

I bring up my arm and pop out three bone claws. "Like my codename suggests, I can mimic superpowers, but I have to see them in action first, or the source has to properly explain them to me."

Jean-Paul looks at my claws in confusion. "If you're copying Logan's powers why don't you have metal claws?"

I look at my claws in confusion as well, that has been bothering me for some time as well. "I honestly have no idea. Well, there's a theory that the metal on Wolverine's claws-adamantium-was artificially added at a later point, so it isn't a natural part of his mutation."

The door from the meeting room opens, we turn around to see Alpha Flight and Wolverine heading towards the garage. "Kid, c'mon, we've got a mystery to solve." Wolverine orders.

I look at the twins for a moment before looking at the adults. "What about Northstar and Aurora?"

"What about 'em? They've got no reason to come. Hell, the only reason you're here is cause Sinister's involved." Wolverine gruffly replied.

Jeanne-Marie puts her hand on my shoulder. "It's fine Nolan, this is your thing after all, we're fine with staying behind." She winks as she says this.

We share a sly grin. I sigh in fake disappointment. "Alright, I'll be sure to bring a souvenir if I can."

Wolverine and I go to the garage with Alpha Flight and get into two of their vehicles. On the way Puck gives me a tablet, I nod in thanks. Looking over I see a facility about two dozen miles north of our current position. This place was an old Essex Corporation genetics lab, it was shut down when the company went under thirteen years ago. Huh, the company shut down a month after I was born, interesting, I'll focus on that another time.

"Even though this facility's been shut down for thirteen years," Guardian says. Wolverine looks at me, guess he noticed the whole thirteen years thing too. "It could still be dangerous, Mister Sinister did own it, after all. Wolverine, Sasquatch, Shaman, Puck, and I will be the vanguard, the rest of you will enter the building from the west side after we send a signal."

While the adults plan, I notice a flash of light out of the corner of my eye. I look out the window and look up, I see the twins in the air flying together, they smile once they know they've got my attention. I smile back as I lean back in my seat. This is gonna be quite the adventure.

* * *

Two hours later we arrive at the facility, Wolverine, Sasquatch, Shaman, Puck, and Guardian walk up to the main doors before turning around. "If things are clear on our end, I'll send a message, if I don't, enter the building from the west side after ten minutes, understood?" Guardian orders.

Snowbird nods. "Of course, be careful you five."

The vanguard stands around the door, except for Puck. Puck crouches down and then launches forward, flying through the door at high speed, Sasquatch follows shortly after, then the rest of the vanguard. We go to the west side of the building and wait there. While we wait Snowbird transforms into an arctic wolf and sniffs the area, after a bit she transforms back to normal and shakes her head. "My nose picked up nothing."

"Great, have I ever told you how much I love flying in blind? Cause really, I do." Marrina says sarcastically.

"None of us like this Marrina," Talisman replies. "Mimic, is it? Wolverine told us of your connection to Mister Sinister, do you know anything about this place?" Talisman asks.

I shrug. "Nothing, I know my family comes from money, but I never looked into where that money came from. To add to that, I didn't even know I was related to Sinister until a couple of months ago."

Snowbird has a curious look on her face, she transforms back into an arctic wolf and begins to sniff again, but instead of the ground she sniffs the air. She growls as she transforms back to normal, she leans down to grab some snow and throws it up to the sky, we hear some distant sputtering. Well, she found the twins.

Northstar and Aurora land, Northstar is shaking his head to get the snow out of his hair. "Hey guys, how're ya?" Aurora says nervously as she does finger guns.

Talisman pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs deeply. "Why am I not surprised?" She turns to me. "I take it you knew they were following us."

The twins and I share a look of surprise. Damn, I knew she was smart, but not this smart. I rub the back of my head. "Uh, yeah, I kinda did."

Their radios go off. _"Guardian here, things are looking clear so far. Snowbird, bring your team in." _Guardian says.

"Acknowledged, Guardian, there's something else: the twins are here." Snowbird replies.

"_Wha- Nevermind, make sure they stay close to you, we don't want to leave them out here alone. Guardian out." _The radio turns off.

We enter the building and find ourselves in a cafeteria, destroyed round tables all over the place, a freaking fountain in the center of the room, and other tables, these ones long and rectangular, along the walls. The power's off and due to the damage in the walls the wind can come through, creating one hell of a horror movie atmosphere. Something falls to our left, we all turn to it and prepare to attack, I swap to Hank's powers, so I gain black fur and grow in size by a small amount. I extend my claws and crouch low, ready to strike back at whatever jumps at us.

From under all of the tables creatures jump at us. They're small, four feet tall, at most, these creatures are pale white with red diamonds on their chest, they also have large mouths lined with rows of sharp teeth and sharp claws at the end of their fingers. Aurora and Northstar turn around and hit the group of creatures behind us with a powerful blast of light, launching them all back. Snowbird transforms into a polar bear and slams two of the creatures on the ground.

One of the creatures leaped at me, but before it could connect Marrina punches it out of the sky and into a wall, it leaves a splatter of blood on the wall as it falls. She winks at me before entering a back-to-back formation with me. Three creatures run at me, I grab one by the head and swing it into the other two, as the two fly Talisman blasts them with a gout of fire.

Aurora and Northstar fly throughout the cafeteria, they fly low to the ground to clothesline the creatures then rise up and drop them on their allies. One of the creatures they even hit with a lariat from either side. To get some of the creatures away from Marrina and I, I stomp on the floor, because this place is already dilapidated its effect is greater than I expect. Problem: my little stomp was more than 'little', none of us heard it in time, but the ground began to crack, eventually it gave way, Snowbird, Marrina, Talisman, and I fall through the newly made hole, Aurora and Northstar fly after me as I fall.

I hit my head after I fall, everything goes in and out of focus, I hear a voice call out to me as I struggle to stay awake. "No-Nolan? He-kay, man?" It sounds like Northstar.

I swap to Wolverine's powers and immediately feel the injury heal itself. I slowly rise up as I put a hand on my forehead. "I'm, I'm fine, give me a minute," Northstar helps me get up. "What happened? Where's the rest of the team?"

Northstar has a sheepish look on his face. "You, hm, you kinda stomped on the ground, guess this place isn't as sturdy as we thought, the ground broke afterwards."

"Shit". I reply.

"Don't feel bad man, the others can take care of themselves. Besides, more of those creatures were coming in from the doors." Aurora explains.

I look around and notice that we're in some underground lab, interesting. I get up and investigate our surroundings, the twins follow close by. We notice a lot of locked doors, the red lights on the panels being the indicators, but one door had a green light on its panel. I swap to Sage's powers and mess with the door, as I do this we hear more of the creatures from the distance.

Aurora and Northstar put themselves between me and the creatures. "You focus on the door, Northstar and I can handle this." Aurora says. The creatures turn the corner and run at us, the twins hold hands and a bright flash of light originates from them. I look away to focus on the door, as soon as it opens, I get kicked into the room, I look through the window and see a smirking Aurora, the light grows in intensity.

I look through the room and see that one of the computers is still active, must've built these things to last if it stayed active for thirteen years. I go to it and use my technopathy to log in, passwords be damned. Okay, this is weird, first, I find one active computer in the room right under our starting point, then I log in and find only one file on this thing: 'X'. I open it and see a whole bunch of mini files, all labeled X-1 to 23, when I open X-1 a word document pops up, the only word on the document is 'Failure'. I do the same thing to all of the other files, they all say the same thing, well, all but one, X-23 just says 'Success', nothing more.

Damn, don't have any pockets in this, so I can't whip out my phone and take a picture of this. Hm, this facility was in Wolverine's memories, what does X-23 have to do with Wolverine? I hear a noise from above, I swap to Scott's powers and prepare to blast whatever drops from the ceiling. Shortly after a mass of yellow and black falls from the ceiling, this mass gets up and reveals itself to be Wolverine.

I power down as I look at him in surprise. "Wolverine? What are you doing here?"

He wipes the dust off of his shoulders. "The ground broke beneath us, got separated from Alpha Flight, I guess the same happened to you," He walks next to me and looks at the computer screen. "The hell is this? 'X-23', some project?"

The door opens, Wolverine and I prepare to attack, but in walk the twins. "Wolverine? Hey, how are you?" Northstar says. Northstar and Aurora's suits have tears in them, there's also a scratch along Aurora's brow, Northstar can be seen favoring his left side.

"Could be better. You two okay, no, wait, what the hell are you doing here? You should be back at base," Wolverine replies. Before Aurora could argue Wolverine just raises his hand and shakes his head. "Y'know what? Don't care anymore. Get outta here, the two of you need to rest," Aurora attempts to argue again. "Now." Wolverine says firmly.

Northstar puts a hand on his sister's shoulder. "He has a point, Aurora. Let's leave this to them." Northstar and Aurora exit the room and fly outside, the rocks had moved out of the way during their fight with the creatures.

Wolverine exits the room; I follow closely behind. For the next few minutes nothing happens, eventually we reach a massive door, when we enter, we find a circular room, a computer in the center, and massive tubes along the walls. I swap back to Sage's powers and log in to the computer, I see options for the cameras, security, creatures, something about 'Weapon X', and more on X-23. I enter the creatures tab and see an option to shut them down, I do that, I check the cameras to find the rest of Alpha Flight in a hallway, wondering why all of the creature suddenly fell over.

I then enter the X-23 folder and find some new data, but not a lot. "Wolverine, from what I got this 'X-23' is a clone of yours, the twenty-third attempt, actually, the first twenty-two failed. Someone by the name of Dr. Sarah Kinney was the primary lead on this project."

Wolverine walks up next to me and stares at the data on the screen. For a moment he's silent, reading over what he can see. Eventually he turns to me. "That explains what X-23 is, but that doesn't explain why I was here."

I go to the Weapon X tab and see a video; I click on it. We see Wolverine in nothing but trunks and a helmet, this helmet is massive, it's made out of metal and has a red visor over his eyes, wires crisscrossing all over the top of it. Mister Sinister walks into view of the camera. _"How goes the training, Dr. Kinney?"_

A woman with black hair and green eyes walks next to Mister Sinister. _"So far, so good. One little problem though: his memory, if we continue to tamper with it, he'll become nothing more than a feral animal, is that really what we want?"_ Dr. Kinney wonders.

Mister Sinister laughs in response. _"Of course, now, do me a favor and never question me again."_ The video ends there.

"Is there more?" Wolverine asks.

I look through and find three more videos. Wolverine steps forward and places a usb into the computer, as soon as the videos finish downloading the four tanks in the room begin to empty. My eyes begin to glow red. Once the tanks empty, we see bigger, more muscular versions of the creatures from outside.

Their eyes snap open before they jump out of their tanks, Wolverine jumps at the two on our left, I blast the two on our right. One of them recovers faster than I expect and leaps at me, I duck, it turns around and slashes at me, I dodge out of the way and hit it with another blast as I roll on the ground. The other creature jumps along the wall and the ground as it rushes towards me, I swap to John's powers and punch it in the side of the face as it nears me. It flies into the computer and its ally, the computer creates a small explosion as it's destroyed, hm, what do they put into those things to make 'em last so long and explode if destroyed, cause normal computers don't explode, do they?

An arm lands next to me. Holy shit, that's a whole arm. I look up to see Wolverine in the middle of a claw fest with his enemies, one of which is now missing an arm, but it doesn't really seem to care. He uppercuts the one to his left, the tips of his claws burst from the top of its head, sick. He then headbutts the one on his right, as it staggers away, he stabs it in the chest, and raises his claws up, splitting its head apart.

My opponents begin to recover, but before they could fully get up I run at them, I tackle the one on the right and slam it into the wall, before it could recover I throw it to Logan who cuts off its head. I then drop, elbow first, on the other one, snapping its neck. I get up and see the destruction we caused in this room.

The door opens and in comes Guardian, he pauses to look at the destroyed room. "Whatever, things are looking clear, let's head back to the base."

Wolverine and I nod as we exit the room. Huh, who knew helping someone get their memories back would be so exciting.

* * *

We all sit around the lounge, relaxing from that shit show of a mission. Walter, still in his Sasquatch from comes back with a plate of cookies, all shaped like maple leaves, once he puts it down, he begins to shift into a tall, lanky, brown haired man with some…interesting sideburns. "How'd things go for you two?" He asks as he takes a bite out of a cookie.

"Learned that Sinister had something to do with my being here. They also made a clone, called X-23. If any of you hear anything about a Dr. Sarah Kinney be sure to tell me ASAP," Logan says. He looks at his watch and gets up. "C'mon kid, we gotta head back."

"Ah, man." I grab some cookies and hurry to follow Logan to the Blackbird.

Before I could exit a hand on my shoulder turns me around. Jeanne-Marie kisses me on the cheek and hands me a small paper, on it I can see her number and Jean-Paul's number. "Don't be a stranger, alright?"

Words eluded me, so I just nodded. The others laughed at my reaction before saying their goodbyes. Once Logan begins the flight, I notice that we aren't going back to New York. "Logan, are you kidnapping me?"

He slaps me on the back of my head as he chuckles. "There's a bar I wanna go to, you're comin' with."

I rub the back of my head, dude's metal skeleton hurts. "Yeah, problem: I'm underage, by eight years."

"Who said you were drinkin'?" Logan asks. We arrive at the bar and land the Blackbird in the parking lot, taking up pretty much all of the space. "You're just here for the company."

I look at him surprise, looks like I'm growing on him. We exit the Blackbird and walk into the bar. We were there for the rest of the day getting to know each other, it was awesome.

* * *

**OOOO WEE! That's a big chapter right there. Well, maybe not big if you're used to bigger stories. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this one. Y'know, there's one thing I'm scared of starting in the next arc, accents. The Recruitment Arc is going to introduce characters like Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Colossus, and I am scared to fuck up their accents, so, I'd like to ask you readers if you want accents or not, there'll be a poll on my account once we near the Recruitment Arc.**

**Also, I know I call them 'suits' but I want to know: is that okay with you? Because I feel like calling them 'costumes' is less than what they are. Spider-Man has a costume, the X-Men have suits that are more professional. Tell me what you think.**

**Funny thing when I was writing this chapter, I realized that this version of Alpha Flight is very similar to my X-Men, Sasquatch and Beast, Shaman and Storm, for example. Didn't mean to do that. That's all from me, thank you for reading, and remember to stay awesome. **


	9. X-All This For a Bike

**Y'know something? Writing chapters in advance feels weird, weird but liberating at the same time. After all, I don't have to trip out about making the next chapter days before I should update the story. Anyway, here's chapter nine of my story, thanks for sticking around so long. That's all I gotta say up here, on with the story.**

**Also, Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you've had a wonderful day, and if you're gonna go Black Friday shopping, please be careful, enjoy the story!**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Marvel Girl: All This for a Bike**

Flying through the air with wings takes some getting used to. Its been three days since Logan and I went to Canada, we've gotten closer, but he can still be an asshole from time to time. Back to the point, see, whenever the weather is clear Warren likes to fly around the campus, he invited me to fly with him today, so I copied his powers and flew around with him. Let me say, even though flying with wings is kinda weird, walking with wings is even weirder, how did Warren handle these things when he first got them?

As we fly, we talk about a new superhero team that emerged just this last week, the Avengers. Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, Thor, and the Hulk got together to beat up Loki, Thor's brother, since then the superhero world's seen a massive surge of popularity. After an hour and a half of flying Warren and I land, as soon as my feet touch the ground, I feel the unmistakable grip of telekinesis wrap around me.

"See ya, Warren!" I shout.

"See ya later, Nolan!" Warren replies.

I'm turned around and come face to face with Jean. She's wearing regular clothes, blue skinny jeans, a yellow t-shirt with the schedule of Dazzler's upcoming concert on it, and a denim jacket with fur along the collar. "Nolan, need your help man." Jean says.

I deactivate my powers as she lets go of me. "Yeah, what for?"

Jean taps the side of her head, ah, telepathic conversation, wonder what for. _"My two-year anniversary with Scott is coming up, and I need some help to get my present for him."_ She explains.

I have a confused look on my face. _"What's the present? And why do we need to have a telepathic conversation for this?"_

_ "Because Scott has little spies all over the place, and I want this to be a surprise," _Jean explains. Woah, the fuck? Scott has spies. _"He's a big fan of _Game of Thrones,_" _Ah, that explains it, he's gotta be a fan of Little Finger or Varys. _"The present, it's a motorbike, Scott's a big vehicle guy, cars, motorcycles, jets, that kind of stuff."_

She grabs a hold of my arm and drags me to the passenger side of her car, the door opens. She gets into the driver side and starts the car, we exit the mansion and she begins to speak to me physically. "The thing is, this bike of his is in a place where mutants aren't exactly welcome, and for some reason the owner refuses to send the bike up to the school. We're going to investigate."

Cool. "Jean, I have a question: why does Scott constantly keep his eyes covered? I know it has nothing to do with the power of his optic blasts, seeing as I'm on the same level." I ask. Only reason I asked Jean was because I felt it rude to ask Scott, yeah, weird logic, I know.

"Ah, thought Scott would tell you by now. That's his thing to say, it'd be wrong if I told you." She replied.

"Right, got it," I look outside while thinking of other questions to ask. Aha, perfect. "So, how'd the Professor find you?"

"Oh, you know, best friend gets hit by a car, dies in my arms, telekinetically flip the car over severely injuring the driver. Basic shit," Jean says way too casually for my liking. "I was like, six when it happened."

Bobby nearly gets lynched, Scott has some tragic backstory that only he should tell me, Logan has no idea who he is, and Jean watched her best friend die. I hope the others have less tragic backstories. What the hell do I say? Crap, this is getting awkward real fast. "That's uh, wow, that's not cool." Nice going Nolan.

Jean laughs as she pats me on the head. "It's fine Nolan, I got over it a long time ago. Why don't I tell you about our first mission? Three years ago, Magneto attacked Cape Citadel, the people there were attempting to launch a rocket to the moon after getting some weird readings from it. The five of us had been training together for months now so we knew how to fight together pretty well. Once the Professor heard what was happening, he had the four of us go check it out, Bobby was supposed to stay behind."

"I'm guessing this is the first of Bobby's many escapades." I chime in.

Jean nods in amusement. "Yup. We take the Blackbird to Cape Citadel, there we find the soldiers dead or knocked out. We make it to the control room and find Magneto waiting for us, he had somehow known we were coming the entire time. While he's monologuing Scott attacks, but for some reason his attack doesn't land, that's how we found out that Magneto had control over magnetism. At the time we didn't take it seriously, he almost killed us due to our negligence. Thankfully, before Magneto could launch a barrage of metal spikes at us an ice wall comes from out of nowhere."

"Looks like Bobby's disobedience helped." I say.

"He still had to write a five-page essay when we got back," Jean says as she makes a left turn. "At the time Scott and Hank were fighting for leadership, almost got us killed a couple of more times. Eventually Warren talked some sense into them, Scott, being the first to recover from that verbal lashing, makes on hell of a plan, we beat Magneto in less than fifteen minutes, one of the generals even called us 'uncanny'. Yeah, that's how the first mission of the X-Men went." Jean finishes.

I nod, pretty good first mission, as far as first missions go. "So, how'd the others join?"

Jean has a sheepish look on her face. "One of our enemies, William Stryker, kinda kidnapped Bobby, Hank, Warren, and I, Scott and the Professor made a new team to save our asses."

"So Ororo, Forge, John, and Logan were the X-Men rescue team?" I ask.

"Yeah, the mission went pretty normal even. Stryker tried to publicly execute us, the new guys and Scott came in guns blazing, we beat back the Purifiers." Jean says.

When we make the next right turn, we notice a ton of fliers and banners all across the block, white crosses on a black background. Ah, hell, I recognize this symbol, the Purifiers are here. Jean and I share a look before looking ahead in determination. While driving we notice a group of Purifiers in front of a store, harassing a mutant kid with horns coming out of his head. At the stop light Jean's eyes begin to glow purple, the Purifiers around the mutant fly in all directions. The kid looks confused before running away to safety.

Jean looks forward and begins to drive again. "That explains why the shop owner was adamantly against sending the bike up to the school."

"Yup, good ol' fashioned racists. Now what, we liberate these people from the Purifiers?" I ask excitedly. I've always wanted to fight Purifiers, probably cause their bigoted racists who aren't willing to see things from the other side. Either that or I have gained an addiction to beating the shit out of people. Who knows?

"You aren't," Jean says. Hold up, what? "Logan hasn't cleared you for combat missions yet. We're just here to get the bike and go, the rest of the X-Men and I will return at a later date to deal with these guys. Got it?" Jean finishes with a stern look aimed at me.

"Fine." I grumble as I sink into my seat. The hell does she mean I haven't cleared Logan's criteria? I've been training with the man for almost five months now, on top of that I've been training with John, and that's basically self-inflicted torture.

She pulls into the parking lot and turns off the car. "Aw, look at wittle Nolan, don't worry, you'll get to fight soon," She said as she rubbed my head. She laughs as I shake my head to get her hand off. "C'mon, let's go talk to the shop owner."

We enter the building and see three cars being worked on; these cars are black with white crosses on top of them. I see a motorcycle in the corner, probably Scott's gift. We enter the office and find two Purifiers talking to a terrified looking man.

"When will the cars be ready?" The woman Purifier asks gently. And by gently, I mean she had her hands on her freaking flamethrower, ready to use it at a moment's notice.

"S-soon, the materials you a-asked for need to be properly studied. We've never d-dealt with those kinds of p-parts before." The shop owner stuttered.

"How soon is 'soon'?" The male Purifier asks as he cracks his knuckles, electricity arcs from them.

"An h-hour, at most. Please, we're trying our best." The shop owner pleaded.

"And what of the motorcycle?" The female Purifier asked. I'm gonna call her Flamey.

The shop owner has an even more panicked look on his face, had no idea that was possible. "I can't give that to you! It's a private order, if the customer doesn't get it than my reputation is put on the line."

The male Purifier, Shocky, laughs. "Look who suddenly grew a backbone. Sorry little man, but too little, too late," He looks out the window to make eye contact with two other Purifiers in the garage. He nods, one of them hops on the bike and takes off with it. "We'll take it off of your hands."

The shop owner looked like he was about to argue, but he finally noticed Jean and I standing at the office door. The two Purifiers notice this and turn around, as soon as they make eye contact with us, I wave. "Yeah, problem. My friend and I kinda need that bike. See, it's an anniversary present, and you kinda stole it." I say with as much false cheer I can muster.

"Who are you?" Shocky asks. He cracks his knuckles again, increasing the voltage of his brass knuckles. Flamey aims her flamethrower at us. This isn't gonna end well.

Jean's eyes begin to glow purple. Anything not bolted down begins to float, Flamey has a hard time keeping her flamethrower aimed at us. The shop owner hides under his desk. "We're the people who came for the bike, the same bike your people just stole from us. I'm very angry in case you can't tell."

Flamey gets launched through the window, Jean follows after her. While Shocky looks on in…shock, I run at him and drop kick him after using John's powers, he flies through the wall and lands in an alleyway, unconscious. I look in the garage to find Jean standing over Flamey and the other Purifier who stayed in the garage.

I hear the shop owner get up from under the desk. "W-what have you done? Great, now they'll come after me and my family, dammit."

I scoff at his reaction to us saving his ass. "You're welcome. Dude, they weren't gonna let you live long anyway, we just saved your-"

"No! All you did was paint a target on my back. Just, just get out." He finishes wearily.

Jean and I look at the shop owner in worry before exiting the place. We walk to Jean's car to begin planning on what to do next.

"Okay, Purifiers took over this place under all of our noses somehow," Jean begins. "We have no idea how entrenched they really are. And they stole the bike. Goddammit."

I hear a group of Purifiers coming from around the corner. "Yeah, hate to say it, but we've got incoming. Five Purifiers, one is heavily armed, the other have small arms and whatever." I inform.

Jean places her head in her hand as she contemplates what to do next. "Can't believe I'm saying this," She mutters. "I'll deal with these asshats; you find the bike. Send me a telepathic message as soon as you secure the bike."

I nod. I activate my…let's call it hunter vision. After some time, I learn where the bike is. I run towards its location. "Won't let you down, Jean."

* * *

"Won't let you down, Jean." Nolan called out as he ran around the corner.

_'I know you won't, kid. Now, time to deal with these guys.' _Jean thought. Turning around Jean sees five Purifiers, one in heavy armor, just as Nolan said. Using her telekinesis Jean lifts a trash can and throws it into the Purifier on the far right, he hits his head on the ground hard, taking him out of the fight. The two Purifiers on the left run around Jean, attempting to trap her in a pincer movement, Jean creates a shockwave, sending one into a wall, the other falls over but quickly gets back up.

The heavy Purifier pulls his LMG from his back and begins to fire countless bullets at Jean. Jean puts up a shield, stopping all of the bullets in their track, she then throws them back at the heavy Purifier, the bullets mostly bounce off his armor, although some manage to hit him in the armor's open points. Jean dodges to her right, avoiding a swing from the Purifier behind her, she bashes the back of her head into his, she can hear his nose break. "Gah! You damn mutie!"

Jean rolls her eyes in annoyance as she telekinetically pushes him into the ground, taking him out of the fight. All that's left is one other Purifier and the heavy, no problem. Concentrating, Jean tears apart the road under the heavy, once the heavy loses balance Jean uses the bits of road and traps the heavy in a coffin of asphalt, with holes for his nose. Turning to the last Purifier, Jean can see them shake slightly, deciding to be nice she just pushes him into a wall, knocking him out instantly.

While admiring her work Jean feels a sharp pain in her neck, she feels around the spot where the pain originates from and feels something, she pulls it out and finds a dart. Turning around Jean can see three Purifiers, all wearing masks, on a rooftop behind her, one holding a sniper. Before she could launch an attack of her own she realizes two things: one, that was a power dampening dart, and two, it's getting hard to keep her eyes open.

The Purifiers quickly surround her, two of them pick her up by her arms. "It's not alone, let us find its companion, brother and sister." The Purifier with the sniper rifle orders.

_'Ah, shit.'_ Jean thinks before everything goes dark.

* * *

Ten minutes later I come across an abandoned building, in it I sense ten Purifiers, the bike thief amongst them. Okay, I could kick the door down, but it's possible that I could kick the wall down as well, maybe killing some of them even. As much as I dislike Purifiers, I still don't want to kill them. I could enter from the top, drop in between all of them, that'd confuse the crap out of them. But they aren't all together, I'd only knock out two or three before they realize what's happening. Wait, where's the bike? I sneak around and find it in the back, good.

I get on the bike and prepare to drive away, one problem though: I have no idea how to drive a motorcycle. While I was contemplating this little dilemma the door behind me opens. The Purifier and I stare at each other for what feels like a minute before he whips out his pistol and shoots me in the head. Good thing I have John's powers active, the bullet just bounces off of my head.

The Purifier stares at me in shock before calling for his friends. Great, here I am thinking I could get away with this bike without any problems, c'mon Nolan, you're a member of the X-Men, getting in trouble is the first thing you do.

I hop off the bike and hit the Purifier in the side of the face, launching him into two of his friends. I lean to the side as one of the Purifiers attempts to stab me with his sword, while his arm is outstretched, I grab it and spin around, knocking him into another Purifier. I let go and watch the Purifier fly into a wall. I clap my hands around the head of another Purifier, while he is disoriented, I kick him into a table in the building. A fist connects with the side of my face, the Purifier who punched me grabs their wrist in pain, I smile as I punch them in the gut and then uppercut them.

The last three Purifiers stay back, trying to strategize how to best attack. I swap to the Professor's powers, the Purifiers all fall down, into a deep sleep. Satisfied I turn around and notice that the bike is gone. The fuck? I hear the noise of an engine revving, I turn the corner and find an eleventh Purifier driving away, shit. I grow a pair of wings from my back and takeoff, I easily find the Purifier driving through the area at high speeds.

"Y'know you're going 90 in a school zone?" I say as I dive bomb him. Gotta be careful, don't wanna destroy the bike, that'd be…bad. "C'mon, officer Mimic's here to give you your ticket. Do me a favor and pull over, yeah?"

"Die mutie freak!" The Purifier replies. He pulls out a shotgun and fires a shot at me. I dodge out of the way, but I didn't exactly look to see my surroundings, I slam into a fire escape. Damn, that hurts like nothing else. I stretch to ease the pain in my back, I then resume the chase. Screw it, I can use Forge's powers to fix the bike. I dive bomb feet-first at the Purifier, kicking him into a pile of trash, oooh, gross. Due to the sudden lack of a driver the bike swerves into a building, the front half crumples into itself, the front tire flies off into a different direction. Jean's gonna kill me.

I land next to the bike and switch to Forge's powers; I immediately understand what I need to do to fix the bike. A sharp prickling sensation originates from my neck. I feel at the spot and feel something, I take it out of my neck and see a dart, things start to get wavy. I look up and manage to see a group of three Purifiers walking towards me, these guys wearing some weird masks, the one in the middle was checking his gun.

"Take this one to the base, it more than likely came with the other one." The Purifier in the middle ordered.

I feel the other two grab my arms, dragging me to their car. Well, time to see Purifier home base.

* * *

I wake up and notice three things: I'm wrapped up by a chain, I'm upside down, and there's someone else behind me, most likely Jean. I move my head around and look at the room, I notice a table with torture devices to my left, the wreck that was the bike is in a corner, why did they keep it, to spite us? "Nolan? Oh, thank God, I had no idea when you were gonna wake up." Jean says with relief in her voice.

"Hey Jeannie, how'd they get you?" I ask. I activate my telepathy and begin to sense how many people are also here. Weird, I can only get surface thoughts from the minds I'm sensing, but there aren't any mental barriers in place.

Jean sighs deeply. "While I was busy dealing with another group of these assholes a sniper hit me with one of their darts. They turn off your powers for an hour."

What? But I can use my telepathy right now, that's strange. "How long have I been out?"

"Thirty minutes, why?" Jean asks.

"No reason, just that I can use telepathy right now." I say casually.

The door opens, and in walks the three special Purifiers. The one in the middle walks right up to me, putting me face-to-mask with him, one goes to the table with the torture tools and looks them over, the other leans on the bike, or what's left of it, at least. "Look at who's finally awake." The Purifier at the bike says.

"It is strange," The leader softly says. "Most mutants are unconscious for only a few minutes, five at most. But you lasted a whole thirty minutes, I wonder why," He walks around the two of us. "Your friend here was unconscious for only four minutes, what makes you so different?"

"I'm not old like she is," I joke. Jean headbutts me for that. "Ow, seriously though, why are you guys here, and why do you want that motorcycle so damn bad? I mean, it's a wreck now."

The Purifier at the table breaks out in maniacal laughter. No, not at all like a stereotypical Saturday morning super-villain, not at all. "Why would we tell muties our plans, huh?" She turns around from the table, in her hands is a sawblade, but this one looks weird, it looks like a purplish metal. She notices my look of curiosity. "Oh, this? It's made of vibranium, extremely useful for durable mutants, like you. Then again, you weren't very durable when we hit you with the dart, oh well." She revs the sawblade.

Nope, that doesn't look fun at all. The leader grabs a hold of the chain before punching me in the face. Holy shit, dude's got an arm on him. I can vaguely hear Jean scream out my name in worry, the leader punches me in the face again. The hell is that trickling feeling. Oh, two of my teeth have fallen out, my mouth is bleeding now. While I get the shit beat out of me physically, I begin a mental attack on the Purifiers, but I don't have any good traction, all because of that weird mental barrier they have.

A sharp unbelievable pain comes from my arm, I look to see the leader place the sawblade on my shoulder. I can't tell who's screaming louder, me or Jean, probably me. Y'know what? Passing out sounds great right about now. Just as everything begins to go black, I feel a strong push, both mentally and physically. The chain pretty much disintegrates, the sawblade flies out of the leader's hands and into the wall. Before my body could hit the ground, I feel Jean's hands grab ahold of me, stopping me from slamming into the ground.

I activate my Wolverine powers and instantly feel my arm get better, I also feel my teeth regrow at a fast pace, weird. As I feel better, I look at Jean in awe, her eyes let off a strong purple glow, her hair flows wildly. What happened next surprised the hell out of me. _"Go to SLEEP." _Jean telepathically orders. All of the Purifiers fall down, looks like Jean completely bypassed their mental defense. _"Nolan, are you okay?" _Jean looks at my arm in worry.

I get up with her help. "I'm fine Jean, used Logan's powers to heal," I stop to look at her. "Jean, you're using telepathy." This is definitely something to talk about later, after all, telepathy isn't one of Jean's powers, or at least it wasn't.

Jean has a baffled look on her face, but before she could further investigate what ever is happening to her the door opens to show more Purifiers. I extend my claws, ready to leap in and cut them all up, but before I could they all fall down. _"Nolan, let's get out of here, the Purifiers have more to worry about anyways." _Jean orders.

She telekinetically lifts the motorcycle, lifts the door of the garage we were in (We've been inside a lot of garages today, haven't we?) and marches out. We find a small army of Purifiers waiting, their guns aimed at us, as soon as they see us, they all pull the trigger of their guns. Jean puts up a telekinetic shield, stopping all of the bullets in their tracks, these Purifiers fall down as well.

For being a newly made telepath Jean is extremely powerful. After another ten minutes of Jean being MVP, we finally make it to her car, she somehow folds the motorcycle into small parts and fits it into the trunk. "Jean, wait. What'd you mean 'the Purifiers have more to worry about'?" A roar can be heard in the distance, I look at the direction it came from and see a giant mass of green and purple dropping into the area. After the cloud of dust from its landing fades I look in awe at the Hulk, he's followed shortly by Thor, Iron Man, Wasp, and Ant-Man. I look at Jean in surprise.

_"It's possible I 'suggested' the Avengers to investigate. Come on, let's get out of here before we get dragged in, again." _Jean says as she starts the car.

As we drive away, I look at the passenger mirror in awe, the Avengers, holy crap, I hope to team up with these guys in the future.

* * *

We enter the garage and find the Professor waiting for us. "You two had quite the adventure, if I do say so myself."

"Is Scott here?" Jean asks as her eyes dart everywhere.

"No, he went with Hank, Warren, and Bobby to the city, they left thirty minutes ago." The Professor replies.

Jean nods as she opens the trunk of her car. She telekinetically lifts the folded motorcycle out of her car and heads towards the door. "Good, I'm gonna need Forge's help to deal with this. See you guys later."

Seeing that the two of us are alone I turn to the Professor. "Hey, Professor, something happened when we were out there. The Purifiers, they took over a part of the city, which has me worried, cause they looked like they were there for a while, makes me wonder how many other bases they have that we don't know about. That's not the main point, see, we were captured, one of the Purifiers cut my arm with a vibranium blade."

"My God, are you okay, Nolan?" The Professor worriedly asks.

I flex my arm. "Yeah, used Logan's powers, so its like it never even happened. Anyway, while this was happening, I tried to probe their minds, but I couldn't, it was like they had some sort of mental barrier, but it wasn't a barrier, you know what I mean?"

"Telepathic mutants are rather common; the Purifiers built a machine to defend their minds in case they were to come in contact with telepathic mutants. You must destroy the machine, after that, their minds are open." The Professor explains.

I rub the back of my head. "Here's the thing, they hit us with these darts that deactivate your powers for an hour, right? Well, as soon as I woke up, I could use mine," The Professor has a calculating look on his face. "And while I was being cut up Jean's powers activated; on a level I've never seen before. That's not all, she gained telepathy-"

"Are you sure? It wasn't you? It is entirely possible that the shock from your torture could mess with your brain." The Professor says. Weird, you'd think Jean gaining telepathy would make him excited, not worried.

"Yeah, it was her. I stayed with Logan's powers while this was happening. Thing is Prof, she was stupid powerful, like, she'd make a whole group of Purifiers go to sleep," I snap my fingers. "Like that. What does this mean?"

The Professor folds his hands together. "This means, that Jean and I have some more training to get done. Go get some rest, Nolan, you've been through a lot today, in fact, no classes for you tomorrow." The Professor exits the garage before I can thank him.

Huh, I somehow bypass an anti-power drug (which still hasn't been answered by the Professor), I see the Avengers for the first time, and Jean gains super powerful telepathy. All this for a bike.

* * *

**My wrists hurt, yo. This chapter took a bit to write, but as soon as I got into it, man did I get into it. If there's one thing I love about this arc, it's that I get to write so many other characters, showing their different characteristics, it's also fun writing their interactions with Nolan. I've even got ideas on how their relationships will play out, even with characters from the Recruitment Arc. That's enough from me, thank you for reading, please leave constructive criticism, and as always, stay awesome.**


	10. X-She Blinded Me with Science

**CHAPTER TEN! Here we are, ten chapters in, here's to another countless more chapters to go. To be completely honest, I have no idea how many chapters I plan for each arc until I get to it, before I got to this arc I didn't even think about making it about Nolan and one other member of the X-Men, it was probably just going to be like, five chapters. Anyways, on with the next chapter, we're over halfway with this arc, then we get the Recruitment Arc, and man, am I excited for that one. Thanks for reading, let's get on with it.**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Forge: She Blinded Me with Science**

Having a day off is awesome, I should get tortured more often. No, nevermind, wouldn't do good for my mental state. A day after Jean and I had our little…adventure things were intense, to say the least, what with everyone keeping an eye on me due to me nearly losing my arm (Thankfully Logan isn't one of those people, or is that not thankfully?), and Jean's newfound telepathic abilities. The training Jean undertook was something else, more than what the Professor put me through, why is he putting her through such intense training? Oh, right, and we still haven't talked about the whole me bypassing an anti-power drug, why is that?

I get up from my bed as I sigh deeply, pondering on this isn't going to get me anywhere, I just have to talk to the Professor when I can. Putting on my hoodie I exit the room, and nearly bump into Forge in the process.

"Nolan, hey, just the guy I was looking for." Forge says excitedly. He has two tablets under one of his arms, he gives one to me. Looking on the screen I see something about Sentinel Services, a company meant to 'Protect the human people from the mutant threat'.

"What's up with this?" I ask as I scroll down. In the next area I can see that Sentinel Services is about to hold an unveiling event, most likely to show off a new type of sentinel.

"Good, you're already there. Sentinel Services is about to show off a new type of Sentinel, this one more dangerous than previous models, the Professor and Scott want us to check it out, and to sabotage it." Forge explains.

We walk towards the elevator leading to the underground of the mansion as I look over more of the Sentinel Services website. They plan on showcasing this new Sentinel next week, good, Forge and I have more than enough time to deal with this.

"Now, I know you might not be one hundred percent, what with yesterday's events-" Forge began.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Forge, I'm fine, there's no lasting damage on me, mentally or physically. Logan's powers made sure of that when I regrew the tissue on my arm," I place my hand on his shoulder as we go down in the elevator. "Seriously, man, I'm more than fine."

Forge looks at me, unconvinced of my explanation. Great, this won't get annoying fast. "Right, whatever you say man. Anyways, we should expect a heavy number of hostiles, so we'd be best to do this stealthily."

"Why can't you do this with Logan, or even Bobby, they're both surprisingly stealthy when they need to be." I say. While putting on my suit I notice that Forge's suit looks more like mine, looks like he and Hank finally upgraded the team's suits from the data that came from mine.

Forge and I head to the garage, towards one of the smaller cars, this one has stealth capabilities, it's awesome. "Bobby's…well, he's Bobby. Logan's refusing to go on any mission unless it happens to be extremely important, something about an 'X-23' if I remember right." Forge answers

Right, this X-23 thing really did mess with Logan's head, wonder if we're ever going to run into him? We drive up the ramp, the doors to the underground garage open to let us out. Looking at the screen in between Forge and I, we see an ad for the Sentinel Services unveiling event, and more on this mystery Sentinel. "Do we know where the new Sentinel is being held right now, Forge?"

"Yeah, a warehouse three miles out from the city, Mimic. Which is good, won't have to worry about any civilian interference." Forge says.

I nod, that's good, wouldn't want anyone undeserving to get hurt. While driving I remember something. "Hey, Forge, whatever happened to the usb Scott gave you after he and I fought Unus and Mastermind?"

"Right, I looked into it, didn't get much. We think the Brotherhood's coming back. On the usb I found a file, something about an 'Asteroid M'. All we know is that Magneto has big plans involving space travel, if his use of the word 'asteroid' is of any importance." Forge explains.

'Asteroid M', sounds big, wonder what Magneto has planned. "Anything else, like how many members are in the Brotherhood?" I ask.

"No, that's all, I'd guess that each member of the Brotherhood only got a little part of the plan. Mastermind's part was about a Cerebro copy, built for Magneto," Forge says as we exit the city. "Nothing about any new members to the Brotherhood."

Right, makes sense that Mastermind wouldn't know everything, supervillains have the tendency to leave their minions in the dark. I then mull over the currently known members of the Brotherhood: Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Mystique, Blob, Pyro, and Mastermind. This team already sounds formidable enough, and the fact that they've been missing for over a year means they had to have added to their numbers, this next fight isn't going to be easy.

I shake my head, won't help to worry about the future, need to focus on the present. I look at Forge and really notice the upgrades to his suit, it looks more reinforced everywhere, especially in the chest, shins, shoulders, and forearms. There are little separations in the armor in certain places, like around the shoulders and elbows, to help with movement.

Forge notices my look of awe. "You like? Hank and I took months to understand and reverse engineer your suit, and man, was it worth it. An exponential upgrade to defense, easier integration of my inventions, and best of all, regulated temperature," Forge sighs in satisfaction. "No more sweaty armpits for the X-Men!"

I look at Forge in disgust. "That's…that's kinda gross, dude. No, not kinda, really gross, that's really gross."

Forge laughs. "Oh, you have no idea what gross is like. Gross is cleaning Logan's and Hank's suits, thankfully Hank just wears pants and bracers, from what Bobby told me, before he mutated further Hank had a full-on suit, cleaning that must have been a pain."

"I've been wondering about that, on the picture of the first team Hank looks…normal, well, disregarding his giant hands and feet. What's up with his current look?" I ask. Please don't be like Scott's story, that was probably more depressing from him then if Jean were to tell me. After Scott told me his origin I looked at our field leader in a different light, loosing your entire family in what should have been a great day would break most people, but not Scott, he gained a lot of respect from me.

"Oh, simple, really. Hank was studying mutations and how they worked, he self-experimented, something went wrong (Or right, if you ask me) and he turned into the blue furred Beast you know today," Forge explained. He parks the car and turns it off. "C'mon, we're here."

Once we exit the car Forge turns around and presses a button on the key, I turn around to see the car drive into the clearing and cloak itself. That is so cool. "Alright, how long do we have to walk for?" I ask.

Forge points ahead. "Half a mile that-a-way." He walks towards the factory.

I follow after him. Looking around I notice something in the air, using John's powers I realize that it's a drone, good thing we aren't in its view yet. I listen closely to hear a factory in work, with a large amount of human noise mixed in, it's hard to differentiate between factory workers, scientists, and guards. "You wouldn't happen to have some cardboard boxes on hand, would you? Cause stealthing this is going to be a bitch."

Forge looks at me with a triumphant look on his face. "Don't worry, I have a plan." He puts his cybernetic arm in front of him and begins to fiddle with something on the holographic screen that pops up.

For a solid two minutes Forge just stands there, messing with his hologram. "Dude, what's the plan?" I ask impatiently.

"Oh, right, the plan. You are going to use your telepathy to hide us from the view of the people, I'm going to use my amazing machine skills to make sure the cameras don't register us." Forge says with delight.

I think the plan over and, huh, it's actually pretty good. "One problem, these guys more than likely have either dampeners or mechanical mental barriers."

"You can still mess with their heads, mechanical mental barriers only stop you from controlling them, or reading their memories. On the off chance it stops you from even messing with their heads, I'll be sure to shut down the machine." Forge reassures.

Forge and I nod at each other before moving towards the base. As soon as we enter the flight path of the drones we crouch into the conveniently tall grass on our right, thanks nature. Forge extends his right arm towards the drone, the light from its camera turns yellow momentarily before returning to normal.

Forge creates a hologram from his right arm, on it is us, from the drone's perspective. "Idiots, they have their drones and security all on the same network. Eh, who am I to complain? Makes my job a whole lot easier." Forge smugly says.

Nice. We move closer to the factory, as we do, I reach out to all of the guards, looks like I'm right, they do have mechanical mental barriers. We need to shorten that name, MMB? Eh, work in progress. Anyway, I go into their heads and make sure they can't process Forge and I, after that's done, we still move in stealthily, gotta be careful, even if all of your bases are covered. We climb up the side of the building and look into the window, there we find three of the new Sentinel models. It's smaller, it still won't walk through a door without any problems, but it's smaller than the average Sentinel model, instead of being a dark pink and purple its colors are silver and blue. The new Sentinels are sleeker too, not as boxy as the previous models, there are little openings along the top of the wrists as well, most likely where blades would come out when needed.

Damn, those things look deadly. Thing is, I have nothing to really compare them to, after my second session in the Danger Room (which wasn't a panic room, as I initially thought) I went against Sentinels created by the room, so they weren't at full power exactly. While scanning the room I saw a woman in a lab coat give orders to the people on the conveyor belt. This woman has white hair, even though she looks to be in her late twenties, she's pale and wears a lab coat over a black, red, and grey suit.

"Holy shit, that's Dr. Alia Gregor, one of AIM's top anti-mutant scientists. Why would Sentinel Services team up with AIM? Actually, nevermind, this gives us perfect evidence to dismantle Sentinel Services." Forge takes a very clear picture of the Doctor, all of her information appears to the right of the picture, her affiliation with AIM included. Forge then sends the picture to news sources like _The New York Times, CNN, _and _The Daily Bugle, _With a message saying 'Don't publish this until the Sentinel Services unveiling ceremony'_. _

Forge and I chuckle as we fist bump. After today Sentinel Services is going to catch hell. We continue climbing the building and reach the roof, once there Forge places his palm on the roof and cuts a hole into it. "Hey, Nolan, think you could swap to Jean's powers and keep this part of the ceiling from falling?" Forge asks.

Good point, if Jean has newfound telepathic powers I should too. I swap to Jean's powers and holy hell it is a rush of power. It's weird, I feel even more powerful, it's like, I can do more than make us invisible from organic eyes, I can actually hear some of their thoughts. Holy hell, how powerful is Jean?

Forge finishes creating our entry point, I make sure none of the humans register the new hole in their building. I lift the both of us and gently take us down to a catwalk above the Sentinels, Forge and I walk behind the one on the right.

"Alright, now what? You do your mechanical mumbo jumbo?" I question. Looking around I notice a lot of soldiers, and they look well-armed, maybe I should knock 'em out? Nah, that could blow our cover, I've never successfully done two things at once with telepathy, not yet at least.

Forge places his hand on the back of the Sentinel's head, a hologram showing an in-depth diagram of the Sentinel appears. Forge does some techno-shit that flies way over my head at the moment. While he does this, I look over the factory, Dr. Gregor moved over to the end of one of the assembly lines, looking at something on a tablet, the workers on the assembly lines look extremely tired, and the soldiers are on edge, hm, I can use this to my advantage.

"Forge, I have an idea," I pitch. Forge hums in acknowledgement as he messes with more of the Sentinel's programming. "Everyone here's on razor's edge, I could…tip them over, pit them against each other, what do you say?" I inquire, hoping he'd go with my plan.

"Great idea, Nolan, do that after I finish with the Sentinels though, yeah?" Forge says absentmindedly.

Wow, he really gets into it when he wants to, doesn't he? Scanning over the factory again I notice a break room, in it I see guards and scientists arguing about something. The assembly belt below us has a worker that misses an important part of a Sentinel, Dr. Gregor notices this. The 'good' doctor marches up to the worker and rips her a new one, after she's done Dr. Gregor marches away, the worker glares at the Doctor's retreating from before mocking her. Man, these guys are doing my work for me, all I have to do is push them.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice Forge walk toward the Sentinel in the center, he does the same thing to this Sentinel. "Hey, Forge, after this what do we do? Just, get out of dodge and wait for the shit show of a ceremony we're making?" I ask.

"That's the plan." Forge drones out.

Well, looks like Forge gets dragged into his work whenever a machine is involved, oh well, we each have our own little quirks. Forge finishes with this Sentinel faster, seeing as he's already gotten used to their wiring. Forge then goes to the last Sentinel, but something different happens, this one activates. "MUTANTS DETECTED." It bellows.

I look at Forge in surprise. "Uh, dude, I thought they couldn't see us!"

Forge has a shell-shocked look on his face. "They must've not been connected to the server. But, w-why didn't the other two activate?" Forge begins to mutter a whole bunch of crap about possibilities and shit.

I grab him by the shoulders and shake him. "Doesn't matter," I point to the Sentinel who is now looking right at us. "Our new friend here is about to turn us into paste, let's get the fuck outta dodge, yeah?"

"What does it mean? Where are the mutants? Why is this one activated and not the other two? Someone get me answers!" Dr. Gregor screams.

I deactivate the mental cloak as we drop down amongst the humans. Everyone looks at us in surprise, I can hear all of their thoughts. _"How did they get past all of the defenses?" _I wink at them in response before pushing them over the edge, causing them to finally act out on their anger towards each other. The factory becomes a fight-club, scientist against worker against soldier (I made sure they didn't use their guns). While this is happening Forge and I run outside, followed closely by the Sentinel.

Gonna say it right now, it is hard running when the ground shakes every time the Sentinel drops its damn foot. I look at Forge, and yup, he's still in shock. "Dude! Get over it, the Sentinel woke up, so what!? You took care of the other two, take pride in that!" I yelled, kinda hard to talk normally when, again, a Sentinel drops its damn foot right behind you.

"LETHAL COUNTERMEASUERS, ENABLED." The Sentinel pronounces. The armor on its shoulder lifts up, revealing a rocket launcher, blades come out of the openings on the top of its wrists, and its eyes begin to glow blue. Lasers shoot from its eyes, destroying the ground behind us, the force of the attack sends us flying forward.

"Dammit, ow, ow, Forge! Get your head out of pity land and do something! Hell, have the drones attack the Sentinel, that'll take some of the heat off of us." I command.

Forge's look of shock becomes one of determination. "You know what, Nolan? You're right, one drone swarm coming up."

The Sentinel stops to loom over us, before it could strike down with its blade a loud noise of rotors originates form behind it. Turning around, the Sentinel sees an army of drones fly at, it does nothing in response, thinking the drones are still on its side, oh man, it is in for a rude awakening.

The drones all activate their weaponry, two powerful electro-guns on their tops and chain guns on their bottoms. Okay, these guys were not playing around, were they? The chain guns fire at the Sentinel, slowly tearing through its armor, the electro-guns fire bolts of electricity at the Sentinel, slightly slowing down its movement. Interesting, either its not shock proof, or these drones have some sort of special bypass against the Sentinel's defenses.

I swap to Ororo's powers and begin to gather lightning around my arms. I float in the air, the clouds dense up around me, blotting out the sun. I raise my arms up before thrusting them at the Sentinel, a large streak of lightning collides with the metal monstrosity. Once the smoke clears, I notice that it's still active, although, its left arm and shoulder-mounted rocket launcher is gone, nice, now I just need to do that three to four more times then it's done for good. The Sentinel opens its hand and aims its palm at me, faster than I can register a yellow net flies out of the yellow circle on its palm, I feel my powers drain at an alarming rate.

"Nolan! Those nets deactivate powers!" Forge oh so helpfully informed me.

Ow, hitting the ground from the height I was just at hurts. "Oh, thanks for letting me know, Forge. I never would've guessed." I sarcastically say, rage oozing out of my voice.

While the Sentinel finally begins to swat the drones out of the sky Forge cuts the net, I immediately feel my powers come back. I really need to stop getting my powers dampened, it's gotta be bad for my health. I stretch as I watch the spectacle that is Sentinel vs drones. The drones are doing a surprising amount of damage, and they take advantage of the lack of armor from my lightning strike, go drones.

The Sentinel then swipes its good arm, taking out most of the drones in the process. The Sentinel slowly gets up, stumbling as it takes more attacks from the left-over drones, once it reaches its full height its eyes begin to glow blue, before blasting most of the drones into oblivion, only three survived.

"Ah, that's not good." Forge worriedly exclaims.

Idea, I just remembered that I went on a mission with Alpha Flight, I saw most of their powers in action, well, time to use Puck's powers. Yeah, we figured out that I can copy powers from anyone, not just mutants, cool, huh? With Puck's powers I crouch down, ready to launch myself at the Sentinel. As soon as it turns around, I smirk, the head looks like a perfect target this time of year. The Sentinel attempts to attack me as I launch myself towards it, the drones bombard its good arm, leaving it basically defenseless. It then attempts to blast me with its lasers, while they are charging the drones fly into its eyes, destroying a part of its face. I go into a ball position as I fly towards its head, I quickly connect with the Sentinel, I fell the machinery in its head, then I feel the rush of air again.

Landing I hear the Sentinel falling behind me. Don't look back, don't look back, cool guys don't look at explosions. The Sentinel explodes alright, and I don't look back, sweet, but the explosion does send me flying into the factory, there I find two guards fighting each other, everyone else is knocked out. Honestly, I forgot about these guys. While they're busy fighting each other, I walk up to them and bash their heads together, knocking them out.

Forge jogs into the factory and looks at the aftermath of the battle royale. He has a look of satisfaction on his face before running to the conveyor belts. "Help me destroy these things."

I grin as another thought comes to mind. "Forge, I have a better idea." I go to one side of the factory, all of the conveyor belts are in front of me in a perfect line, Forge immediately understands where this is going, so he backs away. I bend my legs, put my head down, and smirk, this is going to be awesome.

I leap, the conveyor belt in front of me becomes a mess of metal and whatever else was on it, I fly through all of the other conveyor belts, ooh man, this is fun. I flip over mid-air and place my feet on the wall, basking in the glory of my destructive signature.

Forge walks up to me and the two of us fist bump. "Awesome. C'mon, let's get outta here."

Forge and I exit the building, at the hole I made we find Dr. Gregor waking up. Once we walk past her, I wave at her, she just has a confused look on her face, ha, nice. Forge presses the same button on the key, we can hear the car coming at us, it swerves to a stop, decloaks, and opens the doors for us. "God, that is so freaking awesome." I gasp in awe.

We get in the car and drive back to the school, with the windows down, its X-Men tradition to let the wind flow through your hair after such an absolute win.

* * *

A week has passed, the entirety of the X-Men and a good amount of the student body are in the recreational area, watching the unveiling of the new Sentinels on TV. After dropping the drapes covering the Sentinels the crowd ooo's and aaa's, and then Forge's little trick happened. The Sentinels activated, much to the confusion of the Sentinel Services representative. The Sentinels then looked at each other and completely annihilated each other with their laser beams and rockets, the TV station then changed back to the newsroom.

Cheers can be heard from everyone in the recreational area, all directed towards Forge and I, I put my arm around Forge's shoulder. "Now now, ladies and gentlemen, first I'd like to say that this was all Forge, we shouldn't expect any new Sentinels soon, and if they do come, well Forge here has the schematics on hand," Everyone cheers for Forge. "That's not all, please, turn your attention back to the news."

Everyone looks at the TV again, now showing the picture Forge took of Dr. Gregor. The anchor then informed the views at their various homes of who Dr. Gregor is, and who it is she works with. Yup, Sentinel Services is going to have a shit show.

Tapping into John's powers I lift Forge up. "Forge! Forge! Forge! Forge!" I begin to chant.

Everyone else (but Logan, of course) follows along, cheering Forge on for the next five minutes.

* * *

**You know what's not fun? Having your computer crash while you write this chapter. You know what is fun? File retrieval, thank you Microsoft for having that feature, saved my ass twice now. This arc is now more than halfway done, and let me say, I can't wait to get to the Recruitment Arc, I'll finally get to introduce famous X-Men that I've been wanting to introduce since the Sinister Arc. That's all from me, please, leave constructive criticism, and remember, stay awesome.**


	11. X-Do the Evolution

**So close, yet so far to the end of this arc. We may be near the middle of this arc here on the website, but in my thumb drive, in my thumb drive the story is ahead, past this point and looking into the future. One quick note: this arc's end will begin the introduction of the wider Marvel Universe, you'll see that especially in the Mimic and Angel chapter. Thanks for reading, now, on with the story.**

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**X-Mimic and Beast: Do the Evolution**

Ah, Saturday, the best day of the week. It's been five days since Forge, and I exposed Dr. Gregor and stopped the production of the new Sentinel models. And, as any teenager does on a Saturday, I hung out with Bobby, Armando, and James. The four of us are outside playing a casual game of soccer, James and I against Bobby and Armando, we're ahead by two.

Scoring another goal for our side, James decides to end the game, the four of us then go to one of the tables under the shade of a tree. "Can't believe it's gonna be May tomorrow." James said in awe.

"You can't believe it? How do you think the seniors feel, they're gonna be legal adults by next month." Armando replied.

Bobby takes a drink from his water bottle before adding into the conversation. "Don't know about you guys, but I can't wait for graduation."

"Why? So, you can be a full-fledged X-Man? Aren't you already one?" James asked. Just this last Wednesday Logan finally graduated Bobby and I from his combat course. And let me tell you, it. Felt. Great.

"Well, yeah, but I just wanna lead a team or something, you know? The Professor tells me I need more discipline, I bet if I graduate that'll be enough." Bobby says excitedly.

Armando and I share a look. "Yeah, cause graduating will automatically make you worthy of leading a team, Bobby." I say dryly.

While we talk, I notice Hank walking towards us, he's wearing his X-Men suit with my briefcase underneath his arm. "Greetings, my young friends! Enjoying the weather, I surmise?"

"You know it Hank, how are ya?" James asks.

Hank looks around to admire nature. "Great, James, just great. Nolan, as you can tell I require your assistance, we are to travel to California for this mission of ours."

I take my briefcase with my suit from Hank. "Cali? What for?"

"A colleague of mine recently went missing, Logan and John are currently busy." Hank explained. The two of us walk toward the school, while doing this Hank turns around. "Oh, Bobby, the Professor, Angel, and Jean would like to speak with you in the mission room."

Bobby slides right by us in excitement, Armando and James follow in a more subdued manner. "We'll hang out again later, besides, Armando and I have to study for a test we're taking on Tuesday." James says.

After a few minutes I change into my Mimic suit, ready to go to California. "Alright, who's your friend, Beast?"

Beast flips some switches on the dashboard of the Blackbird. "A man by the name of Dr. Hans Jorgenson, he and I went to school together before I graduated."

"So, he's around your age?" I ask as I look at the data showing Dr. Jorgenson's last known location.

"Oh, no. Hans is older than I am, I believe he has a wife and child now, actually." Hank replies as we lift off.

"Right, right. Well then, let's go find your friend," I reply as we begin the flight to California. "Hey, Beast, what was your life like before the Professor found you?"

Beast looks over the monitor for a moment before answering. "Rather simple, really. My first mutation was enhanced physical attributes, with the added side effect of enlarged hands and feet. While many made a mockery of my differing physical appearance the football team loved me due to my…let's say skills."

"Must've got plenty of championship trophies for your school." I reply.

"A good amount, yes. See, my classmates didn't know I was a mutant, until an accident involving a classmates mutant detecting machine outed me." Beast continued.

"Wait, one of your classmates made a machine to detect mutants? That could be problematic." I say in worry.

"Oh, no. I seem to have worded that wrong, the machine detects those more than likely to carry the X-gene, if the test were to be done on my father it would more than likely have gone off. And it wasn't completely accurate. Alas, the damage was done, I was kicked out, but before I could wallow in misery the Professor came. I assume you know the rest." Beast finished.

I nod. Less depressing than the other origins, but that still leaves one question. "So how did you meet guys like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner?"

Beast chuckles in response. "The Professor was able to get me enrolled in Oxford University, keeping my mutant DNA a secret from the staff and students," Beast has a thoughtful look on his face before he pulls up a picture of a younger version of himself, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, and Reed Richards. "Now that I think about it, four of the five people in this photo have become superheroes, Reed being the only normal one."

Right, after Jean and I got Scott's bike the Avengers visited, Beast, Iron Man, Hulk (in his Bruce Banner form) and Ant-Man hung out like old friends. Looking at the photo I remember something about Reed Richards. "Isn't Richards going on some space trip in a year or so?"

"Indeed. Henry, Tony, Bruce, and I are planning one hell of a party for Reed." Beast answers.

"Huh, nerds throwing a party, this I gotta see." I joke.

Beast laughs as he punches me in the arm. Ow, dude's strong. The monitor beeps, telling us that we've arrived in California. We land a private airstrip owned by The Professor, which makes me wonder, how rich is the Professor?

We exit the Blackbird and find a car waiting for us, we enter the car and head towards Jorgenson's home. The map shows that his home is only fifteen minutes away from where we currently are. Then again, this is California, and I hear the traffic here is atrocious, time to find out if that's true.

* * *

It is true, holy fuck is it true. What should have been a fifteen-minute drive instead became a forty-five-minute drive, and I'm sure we were just lucky today. We finally arrive at Jorgenson's home, Beast knocks on the door, a few moments later a short willowy woman with bags under her eyes opens the door.

She has a look of surprise on her face, after all, it's not every day you see Beast and Mimic at your door. "Oh, h-hello, you must be friends of Hans," She looks outside, as if to see if we're being watched, weird. "Please, come in."

She leads us to the living room; we sit on the couch. "Would you like anything to drink, water, juice?"

"Water's fine, thank you." Beast answers.

She goes into the kitchen to get us water, while she's there I lean towards Beast. "When we were outside, she was looking around, almost as if someone was watching us."

Beast nods. "You noticed that as well, good. Use your telepathy, don't invade her mind, just sense where she is mentally as we ask our questions."

Mrs. Jorgenson returns with two bottles of water; she places them on the coasters in front of us on the table. I grab my bottle and open it, while I drink from my bottle, I notice her look at me from the corner of her eye with an extremely nervous look on her face.

"How are you holding up, Mrs. Jorgenson?" Beast asks.

She sighs as she nervously rubs her hands together. "I'm keeping a strong front, for our son. He doesn't know his dad's missing, Hans has been gone for three days now, some of his meetings have lasted longer than this, so it's easy to explain."

"What makes this any different than his business meetings?" I chime in.

"He always calls me at the end of the day. After the first day I thought he was exhausted, but I didn't get a message the second day, it was this morning that told me something was definitely wrong. I got a message from him, but it wasn't him." She says. This is doing a lot to her; she looks like she's about to breakdown in a fit of tears.

Beast gets up and places a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Do not fret Mrs. Jorgenson, for Hans is an old friend of mine, Mimic and I will do everything in our power to ensure his safe return!"

We hear a giggle from the stairs, we all look to see a little boy, about six years old, watching us. Well, cat's outta the bag now. "You're funny." The boy laughs as he points at Beast.

"Well, I have been meaning to add 'comedian' to my repertoire," Beast looks at Mrs. Jorgenson again. "Now, ma'am, Mimic and I noticed you scanning the area before you so graciously allowed us in your home, would you please explain why?"

Mrs. Jorgenson sighs deeply. "My husband's project is about evolution, how and why living organisms evolve to survive in their environment. Oscorp's funding the project, I think they're using spiders for this."

"Oh! One of my friends is the son of Norman Osborn, I remember him talking about this back in November." I say.

"Yes, but the project's come under attack. Some rival company, I don't know who, decided to kill the scientists on the project." She says.

"Woah, that's a big claim there, what's your proof?" I ask.

"Three other scientists on the project were found dead nearby the mountains, which happens to be really close to where they're working, inside some weird indoor jungle that's being built on in the mountains, they all worked on the project with Hans, hell they came over for dinner just last week before they left.," Mrs. Jorgenson rubs her temples. I scan her mind and notice how stressed she really is, and let me say, I'm surprised she's even out of bed right now. "The phone call, some Russian man used Hans phones, called himself Kraven the Hunter or something."

Ah crap, I know exactly who she's talking about. After the X-Men rescued me I remembered that Sinister mentioned this guy, so I looked him up. Turns out Kraven the Hunter is a top of the line hunter, anything he tracks, he kills, no matter what it is. If he's killing scientists, then I guess that makes him a mercenary as well.

"Right, I believe that is enough information for Mimic and I, we shall get going. Don't worry Mrs. Jorgenson, your husband will return to you, we promise," Beast then looks at the kid. "And child, do be good for your mother, yes?"

The kid gets up and salutes. "Yessir mister Beast, sir!"

I get up from my spot on the couch and head towards the door. "Thanks for havin' us, Mrs. Jorgenson, we'll be back with your husband soon."

As soon as Beast and I enter the car I turn to him. "Look, I know I played into it too, but is it really a good idea to make a promise like that? For all we know-"

"If Hans were dead," Beast interrupts. "Kraven would be sure to let Mrs. Jorgenson know, wouldn't he?"

"Point. Well, let's go save ourselves a scientist." I announce.

"Yes, lets." Beast pulls the car out of the driveway and begins the long drive to the indoor jungle Mrs. Jorgenson told us about.

* * *

It's midnight by the time we arrive, we park the car three miles away from the facility and walk the rest of the way there. After some time, we pass by some trees, and past those trees is a gigantic concrete wall, with the words 'JUNGLE FACILITY 1' spray painted above the massive door.

Beast and I look at each other before looking at the building again. We try to find a way to sneak in, instead the doors open, the speakers nearby the doors activate. _"Greetings, X-Men, welcome to my hunt," _A Russian voice says, gotta be Kraven. _"If you want to save the surviving scientists, you must enter Kraven's den."_ The speakers turn off.

"Wow, he speaks in the third person, talk about a pretentious dick." I quip.

Beast just laughs and shakes his head in response. We enter the building to find nothing but a desk in the center of the room, a water cooler in the corner to our left, and an elevator behind the desk, right in front of us.

The speakers come back to life. _"Come, comrades, do not be afraid. After all, the hunt has yet to begin." _

"It would be rude to keep our new friend waiting, don't you agree, Mimic?" Beast begins to walk towards the elevator.

I look at the closed door behind us and sigh deeply. "It would."

We enter the elevator, before Beast could press the button to take us down the doors close, we feel the elevator go down automatically. I open a telepathic connection with Beast, to avoid Kraven knowing anything about our plans. _"I really don't like this, man."_

_ "Agreed. But until further notice we must begrudgingly play his game." _Beast replies.

I look around and notice a camera in the corner, watching us. I flip it off. _"This Kraven guy, Sinister mentioned him when he kidnapped me."_

On the outside Beast has a calm look on his face, but on the inside, I can tell he is surprised. _"Really now, and what did Mister Sinister say?"_

_ "Something about sending Kraven to hunt me down if he wasn't able to get me when he attacked the mansion. Kinda wish he did, at least we'd have some idea of what Kraven's capable of." _I answer.

The doors to the elevator open to show us a massive jungle. How the hell did they manage to make this, and why California of all places? We walk into the jungle for five minutes, looking around and noticing all of the strange animals, like scorpions and spiders with numbers on their backs.

_"Evolution. Why does it exist? What triggers it? Why do some animals evolve into prey, and others, predators? These questions have plagued me for some time, comrades, and here you are, X-Men, _Homo Superior _next in line on the evolutionary chart," _We hear something dash across the jungle to our right. _"I wish to test my skills against the evolved man, do make this enjoyable, da?"_

Beast and I get in a back to back formation, ready to attack anything that comes at us. The thing from before dashes to my left. I activate my Thunderbird abilities and put all of my senses into figuring out who or what it is that's messing with us. Weirdly enough, it takes some time to figure out what's messing with us, so I focus harder, losing my connection with the outside world almost entirely, just to figure out if what's dashing through the jungle is some weird experiment or Kraven himself. Before I could finally figure out what it is, I feel Beast push me behind him, I stop trying to track down our target to see Beast uppercut a giant lion, something's off about that thing.

Once it lands, we get a better look at it. The lion's about three times its natural size, the skin around its shoulders and neck is torn, showing its muscle underneath. And its teeth look far sharper than they should be, this has to be one of the experiments. I also notice a collar along its neck, must be how they control the animals, and if Kraven took over this place then it's safe to assume that he now controls the animals here.

I take a step forward, next thing I know I'm being tossed through the jungle by a mutated rhinoceros. Fun. I have no idea how many trees and rocks I flew through, all I know is that Beast and I are now separated, but there's no time to dwell on these thoughts, I feel the rhino charging at me. I get ready sumo-style and prepare myself to hold back the rhino, as soon as we connect, I have to lean back slightly, my feet slide across the ground and my arms begin to hurt, this thing's far stronger than I expected.

Holy shit, is the rhino beating me in strength? Dammit, I have to switch to his powers, I haven't done that since November, this is gonna feel weird. I feel Mister Sinister's powers surge through me, the rhino suddenly doesn't feel as heavy anymore, I lean forward, for a moment I stand straight up, then I begin to lean towards the rhino, pushing it back instead. I slowly take steps forward, forcing the rhino back. While it's surprised the diamond on my head begins to glow, I fire a concussive shot at it, it flies into a boulder, dazed. I thrust my hands out and feel the molecules of the ground around the rhino, I raise the dirt to wrap around its body, I then manipulate the molecules, turning the dirt into adamantium. Not gonna lie, didn't think that would work.

I shake my arms around and jump a bit before running in the direction I came from. Before I could get far a knife flies from behind me and imbeds itself into the ground at my feet, I slowly turn around to find Kraven the Hunter on a high tree branch, looking down on me.

Kraven jumps down from the tree. "Do you really think I would let you go back to your friend, comrade?" He circles around me in a predatory manner.

I finally get a good look of the man, and man, does he fit the image I made of him perfectly. A tall man at six feet solid, short black hair, a mustache and a goatee as well, and piercing green eyes that seem to see everything at once. He wears what looks like pants made out of a cheetah's pelt, and an open vest with a lion's face on it, its mane as a giant furred collar around his neck. I can see a hunting rifle, a bow and a quiver of arrows across his back, he has two knives on his belt, throwing knives across his right leg, and what looks like blow darts on his belt as well.

"I can see why they call you Kraven the Hunter. But I have a question: why Kraven? I'm pretty damn sure that's an insult." I quip.

He just growls as he circles around me again, keeping his front to me this time, with his knives in each hand. Y'know what? If he wants to go with the animal theme may as well play along, I activate my Wolverine powers, unsheathe my claws and crouch down, the two of us begin to walk in a circle, waiting for the other to make a mistake.

Oh no, don't you dare itch now eye, don't you fucking dare. Dammit, my eye twitches, and as soon as it does Kraven leaps at me, he attempts to stab me in the shoulder, thankfully my armor deflects the knife, leaving no lasting damage. Damn though, Kraven's a lot stronger than I expected, he has to be enhanced, only explanation. I lunge forward and attempt a slash at his side, he side-steps to the right and elbows me in the side of the head, everything goes out of focus momentarily. During that moment Kraven grabs me by the neck and proceeds to choke slam me.

I just blink in shock from my spot on the ground, no one's ever even attempted a choke slam before, how do I react to that? I see a knife fall to my face at high speed, I quickly lean my head to the side and stab Kraven in the arm, looks like his durability is also enhanced, I needed more force than expected to even break the skin, really wishing I had adamantium claws right now. While my claws are still in his arm Kraven jerks his arm up, bringing me with it, he then thrusts his arm down behind him, slamming me into the ground. Y'know, having a healing factor doesn't make me immune to pain like most people think, this shit hurts, yo, I just recover faster from it.

While on the ground I remember that I have enhanced strength as well, after all, Wolverine wouldn't be able to move as fast as he can with that skeleton of his if he didn't have enhanced strength. With my strength I, in turn, swing my arm, Kraven slams into the ground next to me, I can hear the breath leave his lungs. I wrench my claws from his wrist and leap back to create space for myself. I look to see Kraven still on the ground, is he playing dead? Dude, c'mon, I know that wouldn't take you out. Kraven jerks his head up and fires a dart, with my highly trained reflexes I dodge out of the way, but while I focus on the dart Kraven runs to me, he then hits me with a dropkick that sends me flying into a tree.

I shake my head to refocus, as soon as I regain my focus, I see Kraven running at me with his knives out, ready to stab me, probably in the face, it is my least protected body part after all. I decide to surprise Kraven by running towards him, not at full speed though, as soon as he enters range I Leonidas kick him, causing him to tumble a fair distance away from me, his knives flying out of his hands. Kraven gets back up and growls in rage as he crouches down, ready to leap at me, I take a similar stance. Kraven then leaps at me, roaring the entire way, midway through his leap Beast comes from out of nowhere and tackles Kraven out of the sky.

I stand up straight and blink in surprise, I look at where Beast came from and see a scientist waiting, he isn't Dr. Jorgenson, but it's still great saving someone. I look back and see Beast beating Kraven back, I decide to hop in and help. Beast and I attack Kraven with a flurry of attacks, we see him start to lose his ground, and so, we press our attack. Eventually an opening presents itself, Beast and I sheath our claws and both punch Kraven on either side of his head, knocking him out.

I activate my Sinister powers and do the same thing to Kraven as I did to the rhino. Satisfied with the adamantium trap I place Kraven in I turn to Beast. "So, how'd you find him?"

* * *

Beast and Mimic prepare to attack the lion, but before they can a giant gray blur slams into Mimic, launching him deeper into the jungle. Although worried about his teammate Beast knows that it would be best to focus on the mutated lion first, then to attempt assisting Mimic. The lion leaps at Beast, the mutant rolls under the lion, once under it he kicks it with both of his feet, due to it being mid-air the potency of the kick is enhanced greatly, causing the lion to land on a rock.

Getting up, Beast quickly climbs up a nearby tree to study the lion. "Hmm. Seems as though you were enhanced, but with what? A drug, or maybe some surgical enhancements? And why? Kraven did mention evolution," The lion roars in rage as it circles Beast. "I see, you are an attempt at controlled evolution. Why would Oscorp attempt to evolve a lion though? Now that I think about it, why would they place a lion in a jungle environment? Alas, questions for another day."

Beast jumps down and lands on the lion's head, while it tries to shake off the newly added weight Beast studies the tears in the skin closer. "I can see your muscle, what would happen if I were to," Beast places a claw into the exposed muscle on the lion's right shoulder, the beast roars in rage and pain and doubles its efforts to eject Beast from its back. "I see. Sorry my forcibly evolved feline friend, but I must incapacitate you now, I do hope you forgive me in the future."

Beast stabs his claws into the exposed muscle, the lion roars in pain before falling over, Beast leaps off the creature and pets it in sorrow. He then hears a noise from his left, he looks to find a scientist starring at him in surprise.

"You must be one of the scientists," Beast walks up to him and offer his hand. "I am Dr. Henry McCoy, otherwise known as Beast of the X-Men. Might I ask who you are?"

The scientists shakily takes Beast's hand and shakes it enthusiastically. "M-Miles, Miles Warren. Y-you're here to rescue us, yes?"

"Of course, and I must say, thank you for finding me, makes this so much easier. Now, where is Dr. Jorgenson, and any other scientist for that matter." Beast looks around but sees no one else nearby.

Dr. Warren looks down in shame. "The others are dead, Jorgenson's in the central lab, Kraven wanted him to work on something special due to him being the head scientist."

Beast has a somber look on his face, he places a hand of comfort on Dr. Warren's shoulder. "Loosing friends is hard, I would know, but I also know that they would want us to push forward. Come, let us assist my friend Mimic, then we will save Dr. Jorgenson."

Beast and Dr. Warren go through the jungle, following the sounds of battle from a distance away. While they walk Beast turns towards Dr. Warren. "Miles, is it okay if I call you Miles?" Dr. Warren nods. "Miles, why does Oscorp want to evolve spiders?"

"I-I honestly don't know, Mr. Osborn ordered it, and if Mr. Osborn wants it he gets it." Dr. Warren answered.

"I see, but why lions," Beast and Dr. Warren walk by an unconscious rhino trapped by adamantium. "And rhinos, they have nothing to do with spiders." Beast asks.

Dr. Warren scratches the back of his head in confusion. "I honestly know nothing about the lion, I do know that the rhino is meant for something else, another experiment for something I don't have the clearance to know the full details of."

The sound of combat gets louder, Dr. Warren takes cover nearby a large tree. Beast crouches low and extends his claws, he stalks towards the battle and finds Kraven and Mimic in battle. Kraven leaps at Mimic, seeing this as the perfect opportunity Beast leaps at Kraven and tackles him mid-air.

* * *

"And that's how we got here." Beast finished explaining.

I look at Dr. Warren with narrowed eyes, if this is for spiders then why are they working on rhinos and lions. Dr. Warren notices my look and hides behind the tree completely. "Alright, let's head to the control room, or whatever, time to save your friend."

Beast and I head towards the main lab, Dr. Warren following at a distance, didn't know I was so scary, wait, I can totally use that to my advantage. On the way there we face no opposition, that is, until we reach the lab itself.

"Dr. Jorgenson! Open this goddamn door before I resort to more…brutal means!" I swap to my Thunderbird powers and smash a rock in my hands to show my strength.

For the next minute there's nothing but silence, this is getting way out of hand. I rear my fist back and prepare to punch the door in, but as soon as my knuckles even touch the door, they slide open incredibly fast, and I can't stop the momentum from my punch. I fall flat on my face, Beast and Dr. Warren step around me, Beast chuckling as he does. I get up from the floor and grumble a lot of obscenities directed towards Dr. Jorgenson.

We walk through the lab and see a good amount of dead bodies and data, what the hell were they doing here? I see data on stuff like rhinos, scorpions, and vultures, but it's the spider stuff that really interests me. Looking at it I see the name of the person who started the whole evolution project that Oscorp is now doing Richard Parker, Peter's dad. The hell? I look through the data and see that this whole project came from him, but the spider data, for some reason he focused on that the most.

Before I could download the data so I could show it to Peter later the computer shuts down, they all do. The three of us look up and see Dr. Jorgenson at the doors with a device in his hand. Sniffing the air, I can smell fire behind him, holy crap, dude torched the place. We all run out of the lab as fast as we can, turning around we see fires rage in the main lab.

Beast turns to Dr. Jorgenson. "Why Hans? All of that work, gone, and for what?"

Dr. Jorgenson looks at all of us. "Trust me, this is for the better. Come, let's get out of here, I've had enough of the jungle to last me a lifetime."

We exit the facility, but before we do, I activate my Sinister powers and transform the adamantium bonds holding the rhino and Kraven into steel, don't want everyone to have adamantium now, do we?

We go to the car and begin the drive to Dr. Jorgenson's home. When we arrive Mrs. Jorgenson and their son rush to Dr. Jorgenson and envelop him in a deep hug, Mrs. Jorgenson thanks us profusely as she does this. Dr. Miles Warren decides to stay with them for a bit, seeing as he has no family to worry about him, which is totally depressing, let me say.

Beast and I head to the car and begin the drive to the private airstrip, ready to put this adventure behind us and move forward in our lives as X-Men.

* * *

**So I have another story called _Team OMGA_, a story based off of the Rooster Teeth anime _RWBY,_ it's been a long time coming but I finally plan on updating the story. Really soon, either this Saturday or the next it should be updated, so please keep an eye out for it if you are interested. Also, by the time this chapter is posted I've started the final chapter of the X Arc, and man, it was a trip but now I can finally start the Recruitment Arc soon, and I can't wait for you guys to see it. **

**Thanks for reading! Please, leave a constructive review, tell your friends about this story, and remember to stay awesome, see you next week.**


	12. X-Guile's Theme Goes With Everything

**We're nearing the end of this arc! Time for recruitment is nigh! Yeah, I know, this arc might be a little slow but don't worry, Recruitment will pick up for the Brotherhood Arc, which I should probably be writing by the time this chapter is posted. Anyway, thanks for reading and sticking around for this long, on with the story.**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Thunderbird: Guile's Theme Goes with Everything**

After school on the following Wednesday I went over to Peter's house, mainly to hang out with him but I also had the intention of finding out more about his dad, I know Peter doesn't know much but I feel like asking him would be better than asking Ben or May outright.

"So, what do you wanna know about my dad?" Peter asked.

I can tell he's curious, thankfully he doesn't probe too much. See, they don't really know that I'm a member of the X-Men, and by they, I mean Harry, Gwen, and Peter, better that way. I turn to Peter. "I just want to know if you know anything about any experiments he might've done, mostly on evolution. Ben and May had to tell you something about the man, right?"

Peter gets up and walks to his closet, he then pulls out a briefcase with the initials 'R.P.' on it. "Well, here's his suitcase, it's the only thing of his I have."

We stand in front of the suitcase, looking at it as if it holds the secrets to the universe within it. Peter put in a set of numbers to unlock the suitcase: 0810, Peter's birthday. He opens it, and inside we see a ton of papers, one paper that immediately catches my attention is one on evolution. While looking the paper over a thought comes to mind. "Hey, Pete," Peter stops rifling through some papers to look at me. "Did you ever wonder what this stuff's about? You had to have seen this before, right?"

"Uh, yeah, I did. It's just that, uh, I was scared to really look into it, y'know? Like, what if I find something about my dad that ruins my image of him? I know so little of the man to begin with, wouldn't want to taint that, y'know?" Peter answers.

I nod in understanding. I always thought Grandpa was a great guy, what with how amazing Mom turned out, and guess what? Grandpa happens to be Mister Sinister, so I totally get how Pete feels right now. "I know exactly what you mean bro, found out things I didn't want to know about regarding my family just recently. Wasn't fun at all."

Peter sifts through the suitcase and pulls out more papers regarding evolution and hands them to me. "Here, you can give them back whenever you're done, okay?"

I look at the papers with a raised eyebrow, I then look at Pete, then back at the papers, then back at Pete, I do this for a minute straight. "You sure about this, bro? These are your dad's papers, it's like giving me a part of him."

Peter just waves off my concern. "I know you'll take care of the papers. So, you down for another game?"

My phone rings, I look at the ID and see that John's calling me. I raise a finger to tell Peter to 'hold that thought' and go over to a corner. "Yo, John, what's up?"

"We gotta mission to go on, the Professor wanted me to bring you along considering the fact that you're on the way there. I've got your suit with me and your parents already know about this." John answers.

"Right, on my way," I end the call and apologetically turn to Peter. "Sorry man, that was one of the teachers from the school, I gotta go. Talk to you later."

Peter and I do our handshake before he leads me to the front door. I wave goodbye to May and Ben before exiting the house where I find John in his car waiting for me. Funny thing I should mention, John's car happens to be an eighth-generation thunderbird, may as well tell everyone your secret identity bro.

I get into the back of the car, John hands me my suitcase. I notice that he has his suit mostly on, only leaving his domino mask off. "An old friend of mine from the military, another mutant, sent me a message. Weird thing is that the message wasn't entirely clear, almost as if something was actively trying to block it out." John explained.

"Right, so what's this guy's name?" I ask as I put on my shirt of my suit.

"His name's Augustus goes by Pulse. His powers allow him to mess with tech and mutant powers." John answers.

We begin to drive away, heading to wherever it is that John wants to go. I look out the window and notice that the sun is beginning to set. "Where're we going?" I ask.

John takes a left turn. "A facility just out of the city, Forge was barely able to track it to that location."

The drive continues for another hour and a half, during that time John and I talk about random stuff, like what shows we like, places we'd like to visit, and whatnot. Eventually we near our location, as we near the facility John puts on his domino mask and fully becomes Thunderbird. We park the car amongst the trees, a distance from the facility itself, I turn on my Beast powers and feel myself grow in size and black fur sprout all over my body.

As we walk, we hear some gunfire in the distance, Thunderbird and I worriedly look at each other before running towards the gunfire. Jumping over a boulder we see three Sentinel drones flying overhead, firing at another boulder where a blond man is seen taking cover. Thunderbird turns around and grabs the boulder behind us, he then chucks it at the drones, taking two of them out. The remaining drone and the blond man look at us in surprise, the blond man then whips out of cover and reaches out towards the drone, its lights flicker before the drone ultimately shuts down.

"Took ya long enough, was begin to think you stood me up," The blond man walks towards us. He and Thunderbird share a bro hug before he turns to me and offers his hand, we shake on it. "Name's Augustus, you can call me Pulse."

"Nolan, or Mimic when the time calls for it. Like now." I reply.

Pulse nods before turning around, pointing at the facility that's barely visible in the distance. "That there's a Sentinel facility, lately they've been doubling down on security, something about a breach happening about a month ago. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Mimic and Forge attacked a Sentinel facility last month, stopping a new dangerous line of Sentinels from being mass produced." Thunderbird explained.

Pulse gives me a high-five. "Nice one. One teeny tiny problem though: Sentinel Services is now looking at new alternatives to hunting down Mutants, they've got a Dr. Roderick Campbell."

"How do you know about this?" I ask.

"I was lucky enough to capture a guard who wears clothing close to my size, disguise didn't last long though, about a week." Pulse answered.

"Okay, now we know our objective: Get in, find out more about this new project and destroy their data on it, and interrogate Campbell if possible," Thunderbird rattled out. "Pulse, you'll take out their security systems, when that's done join me in creating a distraction, Mimic, gather any data you can."

I turn off my Beast powers and activate my Professor X powers. "And Dr. Campbell?"

"Secondary priority, only get him if you can, take no risks," Thunderbird replies. He jumps in place for a moment. "You guys ready?" We both nod. "Let's go."

The three of us make our way to the facility, led by Pulse. Once we near the gate we see that a part of it had been cut open, most likely by Pulse during his earlier escape. We sneak in and find a back door where two guards are seen on either side of the door.

Pulse reaches out towards the camera above the door. "The camera's on a loop, we won't appear on it. What do we do about the guards?"

"I got it," I use my telepathy to reach into the guards heads and mask our presence. "Did the same thing to their brains, they won't be able to register us."

The three of us walk to the door and waltz right on in to see some guards, scientists, engineers, and workers in the breakroom, all staring at us in surprise. I quickly erase their minds of the last ten seconds and mask our presence to them as well. "That was close." I say.

"Thunder, how're we gonna do this?" Pulse asks.

"We need to find an optimal spot to hold our ground, but we need to be close to Mimic in case either of us gets overwhelmed and we need to regroup." Thunderbird answers. The three of us walk throughout the facility, we see rooms showcasing video footage of past battles with the X-Men against the Sentinels, hell, there was one showing the Brotherhood fighting the Sentinels. In another room further down the hall we see a meeting going on, with a PowerPoint presentation, on it we see a comparison between a Sentinel and Cyclops.

"Found a spot." Pulse announces. They climb up to a collection of cat walks above the main room, which happens to be a large laboratory, where a multitude of scientists can be seen working on chemicals and computers and the like. Once they reach a preferable position Thunderbird turns to me and gives me a thumbs up, time to get shit started.

* * *

Thunderbird and Pulse watch as Mimic walks away, the two share a look and nod in determination. One of the scientists looks up and notices Thunderbird and Pulse looking down on them, before he could call out their position a bullet tears through his shoulder, knocking him into some chemicals.

The room stops, all of the scientists and the guards in the room stop what they are doing and look up to find two mutants appear from out of nowhere above them. Pulse takes aim at a collection of chemicals on a table in the center. "Hello there!" He fires, once the bullet connects with some beakers the chemicals explode, the scientists around the table are thrown across the room, and a noxious cloud begins to spread from the table, everyone in the room, other than Pulse and Thunderbird begin to cough violently.

The fans above the room activate, Thunderbird and Pulse notice the gas begin to fly towards the fans. "Can't have that now, can we?" Pulse's eyes glow yellow, the fans spin in the opposite direction, forcing the gas down, and keeping it down there as well.

The doors open, causing the gas to spread out, more coughing could be heard from outside. Thunderbird notices a guard hold a hand over his mouth as he took aim at Pulse, Thunderbird threw one of his knives into the guard's hand, causing his aim to go off sharply, hitting another guard in the legs.

Listening carefully Thunderbird hears a group of guards marching quickly towards their current location. "Incoming," He focuses his senses greater. "Ten guards, all armed with assault rifles, pistols. They've got gas masks on."

Sure enough, ten guards, five on each side of the lab, burst into the room. As soon as they laid eyes on Pulse and Thunderbird, they opened fire, Thunderbird placed himself in front of Pulse, but he raised his right arm slightly, to allow Pulse to aim and fire at the guards. One of the guards goes down, the guard next to him drags him out of the room, seeing as the gas was beginning to seep into the holes in his armor.

"You saw that?" Pulse asked as he continued to fire.

Thunderbird nodded. "Yup." He grabs a part of the railing in front of him and breaks it off, he rears his arm back and launches it into the leg of one of the guards, he begins to scream in pain. The guard next to him looks at him, but while he does this a bullet from Pulse breaks off the front of his mask, exposing him to the gas.

"Hey, you ever wonder what chemicals they were working on?" Pulse asked as he continued to fire at the guards.

"No need to think about it now, Mimic will get the data then we can figure out what's going on," Thunderbird replies. Thunderbird then enhances his senses further, everything but his sense of smell, and hears even more guards coming in, some from up above even. "Shit, they're trying to surround us, five are coming in above."

Pulse taps Thunderbird on his right shoulder blade three times, their own individualized signal stating 'Understood'. Pulse turns around and aims up, ready to fire at the guards, Thunderbird spreads his arms out, then he quickly claps them together, the gas was blown out completely, and the guards were launched through the windows, knocking them into the other incoming guards.

The roof behind the two bursts open, five guards drop in, but before they could even land Pulse was able to successfully shoot down two of them. Thunderbird grabs another portion of the railing, tears it off, and swivels around, throwing the piece of railing into a third guard. Pulse and Thunderbird share a quick nod, Thunderbird then launches himself at the guards, hitting them with a lariat, taking them down to the main room with him.

The two guards are knocked unconscious, but before he could admire his work Thunderbird feels a mass of bullets pelt against him, thanks to his reinforced suit he feels nothing along most of his body, but he feels little pricks against his unarmored head and arms. Before running into the group of guards Thunderbird notices his knife in the hand of the earlier guard and dashes over to get it.

As he nears the guard a flashbang grenade lands in front of him, as soon as Thunderbird's senses were aware of the grenade it exploded, and due to his enhanced senses, the grenade's effect is much greater on him. Thunderbird trips on the guard and runs through the wall, blind. Three of the guards, these ones heavily armed, follow after Thunderbird, while the other five march towards Pulse, firing as they do.

"Dammit, this isn't going so hot," Pulse peeks out of cover and fires at one of the guards, taking him out of the fight. "Hope the kid's having a better time."

As I go through the hallway, I deactivate the Professor's powers, a guard notices me as I run by. I activate my Iceman powers and…ice up? I probably need a better term for that. Anyways, I create an ice slide and travel through the building, freezing any guards who get in my way. I notice a group of fifteen guards with gas masks marching towards me, more than likely heading towards Pulse and Thunderbird, I freeze five as I slide by, they can handle the other ten.

My eyes dart all over the place, looking for any signs of a room filled with computers. Ah! Found you! I hop off my ice slide, as soon as I land, I do something that Bobby and I have been practicing with for a while: I create two ice golems, one punches down the door, the other moves in right behind it. I can hear guards and technicians screaming in terror at the sight of two ice golems, bullets can also be seen bouncing off of them.

I create a small, angled ice column under my feet, launching me into one of the guards at high speed. Looking around I notice that all of the guards have been knocked out, and the scientists are trapped by ice prisons made by the ice golems. I point at them sternly. "Stay."

I swap to my Sage powers and go to one of the intact computers, on it I find out about things that sound really…interesting. Things like 'THE HOUNDS' and 'Project Wideawake', but that was all. I grab a thumb drive and enter it into the computer, downloading all of the data, while this is happening, I hear a mass of footprints outside, I go up to the wall and listen carefully.

"Dr. Campbell, we need to get you out of here, two mutants are attacking the facility." I barely hear a guard say.

I activate my Thunderbird powers and listen better. "Where are these mutants?" A voice replies.

"The main laboratory, doctor. Wait, I'm getting reports that a third and a fourth mutant are also here." The first voice answers.

Wait, fourth mutant? Thunderbird, Pulse, and I are here, who's the fourth? While I mull over this, I fail to stop one of the scientists from crying out, giving away my location. "Hey! One of the muties is in here!" Shit.

I hear two of the guards run to either side of the door, a third places a breaching charge on the door. Wait, I can use this, I go to the back of the room and crouch down, ready to launch myself forward, luckily enough I can sense Dr. Campbell behind the guards, right on the other side of this door. An explosion occurs, I launch myself forward, Through the smoke and confusion I fly into Dr. Campbell, I hear a sound of surprise come out of him before we go flying down the hallway.

"Hey, how are ya?" I casually ask.

Campbell futilely punches and kicks me to try and get away from me. "Let go of me!" He continues his useless attacks.

I begin to slow down, I drag my feet on the ground to increase my stop in momentum, I pivot on my heels and turn around completely and run down the next hallway, heading towards Thunderbird and Pulse.

"Let go of me, you moron!" Campbell says as he stops kicking and punching me, realizing that it was futile to begin with.

"Dude calm down. We just wanna ask some questions, after we're done, we'll let you go." I reply.

Before he could reply I notice something roll towards my feet, looking down I see what looks like a grenade. Shit. Smoke erupts from the grenade; Campbell and I cough as the smoke enters our lungs. I feel the butt of an assault rifle smash into the side of my face, it breaks in response, the guard holding the gun looks at me in surprise. Before he could attempt another attack, a gunshot could be heard, the guard falls on me, dead.

The smoke clears, looking up Campbell and I see that one of the guards shot the dead guard at my feet, Campbell and I look at each other in surprise before turning back to the rogue guard. "I, uh…thanks?" I ask.

"Thanks!? Thanks!? When I get out of this, I will have your job! Do you hear me!?" Campbell roars.

The guard laughs, and while he does, we notice that his laughter slowly becomes more feminine. The guard's form changes as well, into an attractive blue woman with yellow eyes and red hair wearing a white dress, the dress is form fitting on the top and has slits on the sides of her legs that go all the way up to her hips. Oh, shit, Mystique. I've read about her in the repots, she's one of the more dangerous members of the Brotherhood, but what is she doing here? This doesn't look good, first Mastermind now Mystique, the Brotherhood's got something planned, I'm sure of it.

"You must be Mimic, Mastermind's told us so much about you," Mystique begins as she circles around me. Even with my Thunderbird powers I still feel as though she's extremely dangerous. "My boss wants to talk to you, but that can come later. Right now, I need Dr. Campbell, be a dear and hand him over, will you?"

"Do not put me down." Campbell orders.

I roll my eyes in annoyance. "Really, first you wanted me to put you down, now you don't, you scientists are so damn confusing."

While we argue I notice Mystique lunge at me, I lean back and prepare to punch her with a left hook, she dodges it and puts both of her pistols right in my eyes just before pulling the triggers. Let me say, even with superhuman durability getting shot in the eyes is not an experience I want to go through again. My eyes explode in pain, and so I place my hands over them to try and soothe the burning irritation. After three seconds (I counted) I open my eyes to find Mystique and Campbell gone. Shit.

My radio goes off. _"Mimic, where are you? We need to leave now; Pulse and I are being overrun."_

I look around and find no traces of Mystique or Dr. Campbell. I sigh in resignation before activating my earpiece. "On my way, Thunderbird." I decided it'd be better to tell him about Mystique in person.

I run towards their position, but before I get there a group of three guards come out of a door a few feet ahead of me. I increase my speed, lower my head, and spread out my arms. Before the guards could react, I tackle the one in the center, and clothesline the other two, knocking them all out instantly. I then swap to my Elemental powers (Vanessa's powers) and create a powerful burst of air behind me.

I finally see the main lab and see Pulse and Thunderbird pinned behind one of the tables, a group of guards firing on them. Luckily the guards have their backs to me, thanks to the gunfire they don't hear me coming. I angle my body legs first into one of the guards, and at high speeds slam my legs into him, the force of the hit sends him flying into the wall, everyone stops fighting to stare at my surprise arrival.

"Howdy." I lower my arm before quickly raising it up at the guards to my left, hitting them with a wave of fire. Pulse and Thunderbird get out of their cover and tackle the two remaining guards. After that was finished, we all gather in the center of the room, I can see Pulse is favoring his left side, I see a bullet wound in his left forearm also. Thunderbird is breathing heavily, bleeding from some cuts that are riddled all over his body. See, superhuman durability doesn't exactly mean we're invincible, it just means it takes a lot more bullets than usual to even do anything against us.

"You weren't able to get Campbell?" Pulse asks.

Another group of guards come rushing towards us. Goddamn how many of these guys are there? The three of us jump up to the second floor, well, I create an earth pillar beneath Pulse and I. Once outside we see a massive number of bodies, guards, scientists, and simple workers alike. Small fires can be seen all around the grounds. The guards come falling out of the hole in the roof and begin to chase us. The three of us run to the car as fast as we can, I also create earth walls behind us to protect us from the bullets.

I get through the fence first, followed by Thunderbird. Before Pulse could follow through another bullet is shot into his right shoulder, Thunderbird turns around to attempt to help Pulse, but we notice the guards closing in fast, and they've got guard dogs with them as well. Shit, this isn't looking good.

Pulse fires at the guards but his weapon quickly clicks, signifying the lack of ammo, he throws his gun at one of the guards, the guard just smacks it out of the way. "Damn. Kid, you get the data?"

"Uh, y-yeah," I fumble around but eventually pull out the thumb drive. "Right here."

Thunderbird tries to reach forward, but Pulse's eyes glow yellow as he does, we immediately feel our powers go away. "Pulse, what the hell are you doing?" Thunderbird asks with a low voice.

"Getting you guys outta here. Go, now, they're closing in really quick." Pulse replies casually. Thunderbird tries to argue but Pulse interrupts. "John, c'mon, mission's over, take the kid and get outta here. I can handle whatever they throw at me until you guys come rescue me."

Thunderbird has a look of turmoil and anguish on his face before turning to me. "Mimic, let's go," He turns back to Pulse. "We'll come rescue you Augustus."

"I know you will, John. Now go!" Pulse orders.

Thunderbird and I race to the car, silent the entire time.

* * *

We make it back to the mansion eventually, before John could go sulk in his room, I ask him to call a meeting with the rest of the X-Men. He complies and about thirty minutes later we're all in the mission room, John and I standing in the center while the others are on the couch around us.

"I truly am sorry about Augustus, John. I assure you; I will search for him with all I can." The Professor begins.

John shakes his head. "It's fine, Augustus is tough, we should still focus on saving endangered mutants first and foremost."

Warren nods. "Did you find out anything while you were there?"

I step forward and activate a hologram, showing project 'HOUND' and 'Wideawake'. "Don't know much now, what with the intense encryptions on these files, but I do know that Wideawake has something to do with increasing the capabilities of the Sentinels. The Hounds on the other hand seem to be more organic in nature, I'm thinking that they'll give humans Sentinel-like abilities, but I could be wrong."

Forge leans forward in intrigue. "Give me the files, Sage and I can look through these whenever you can't."

I pull up a holographic keyboard and input the commands to send the data to Forge, his right arm makes a noise shortly after. "There's something else."

Ororo notices the look on my face. "What is it, Nolan?" She asks worriedly.

"There were four mutants there," I scratch the back of my head. John and the others look at me surprised.

"Who was the fourth?" John asks.

"When I had Campbell in my grasps two guards approached us, one of them shot the other. This guard then transformed into Mystique." I reveal.

"Shit." Logan so eloquently states.

"Indeed. First Mastermind, followed by Quicksilver, and now Mystique? I do believe the Brotherhood is gearing up for something catastrophic," The Professor says as he rolls in front of John and I. "I believe now is the perfect time to tell you this."

"What, Professor?" Scott asks.

Two holograms pop up, one showing an advertisement for a German circus and their 'Amazing Nightcrawler' and a translated news story from Russia, something about a metal man. "I believe it is time for an expansion, one the likes of which the X-Men have never seen before."

We all look at each other, what does the Professor mean by that? "How big of an expansion are we talking, cause two mutants doesn't seem like that big of an expansion." Scott says.

"These two are just the beginning, I have another seven other mutants in mind, I just need more time to properly get a feel for where it is they stand, whether it is with us or with Erik. Is there anything else you would add to your meeting Nolan?" The Professor finishes. I shake my head no. "Well then, I shall continue vetting our possible future family members. Meeting dismissed."

We all exit the mission room, excited to see where the Professor will take the X-Men next.

* * *

**AAAAHHHHH! This chapter took forever to crank out, and now I don't know how I feel about it. Honestly this arc's kinda draining me, but I already made the promise to give each of the X-Men their own chapter, so they'll get their own chapter. Thanks for reading, please leave a constructive review and spread this story out to your friends and family! Stay awesome.**


	13. X-Pegasus Fantasy

**Here we are, last chapter regarding the original five and the second to last chapter of the X Arc. Looking back, I realize, I have set up a lot of things for future arcs, and I'm kinda scared that they won't get proper conclusions or that I'll fuck up somewhere down the line, like with Campbell in the last chapter. Anyways, thanks for reading, let's get on with it, yeah?**

**Late happy holidays! Hope you guys got what you wanted, me? I got Jedi Fallen Order and some new shoes, not a lot but hey, I can't complain. But yeah, here we are with the last chapter of the decade, that's something to think about. Thank you for sticking around, I really do appreciate it, I mean, if it weren't for you I highly doubt this story would continue, so thank you. Well, let's get on with this, see you next week! (Note: I did not say year or decade, you're welcome)**

**PS. I loooove adding cameos, it's fun!**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Angel: Pegasus Fantasy**

John's slowly getting out of his depressed funk, mostly by using the idea that Pulse went through the same training as he did, so Pulse's tough, he can survive while we look for him. While this was happening, the Professor continued his expansion project for the team, adding another two mutants to the list officially, some girl with absorption powers and a guy who can make playing cards explode, it's a good thing they're travelling together. Things at the school are beginning to pick up, after all, graduation's coming up really soon, and seeing as this is the first official school year things are put into overdrive to make this damn near perfect.

The X-Men are leading groups of students in specific aspects of the graduation, like catering, counting the number of people attending, that kind of stuff. The X-Men are working in two pairs of two and two trios. Ororo, Bobby, and Hank, those three are in charge of making sure the location is nice and clean. Logan and Scott have to make sure the number of chairs and food matches the number of people planning to attend. Jean, Forge, and John are in charge of the diplomas and the sound system and all the technical shit. Warren and I oversee catering.

Right now, Warren and I are in the recreation room, looking at websites for catering services. While doing this an important question comes to mind. "Hey, Warren, how're we gonna explain that this is a mutant school? This places staff and student body origins isn't exactly public knowledge after all."

"Oh, yeah, the less human looking students have watches that Forge and the Professor worked on, it creates a hologram around them. Makes them look like what they would if they had a human appearance." Warren explains.

Now that I think about it I did notices a lot of watches throughout the school, the kid with four eyes had one, the girl with her hair on fire did as well. "Why doesn't Hank have one then?"

"The whole world pretty much knows that Hank McCoy and Beast are the same person, besides, he doesn't want to 'rid the world of these luscious blue locks'. His words, not mine," Warren answers. "Oh! That place looks promising."

The website is one for a Fallier Foods a New York based company, with restaurants all over the United States. Scrolling through the website we see nothing but glowing reviews. Warren and I look at each other and nod, this is the one. I click on the cater button, it takes us to another page where we see the schedule in New York City, and holy crap it is damn near full, luckily there's one spot left. Not only that, the spot works perfectly for the graduation ceremony, awesome. Before I could click on the time it becomes grey, someone else took it from right under us.

Warren and I stare at the computer screen incredulously, did that really just happen? I refresh the page and, yep, still grey. Warren gulps. "Click it, maybe we can see who took it," I click and see who swiped the catering from us, Worthington Industries, I look at Warren in surprise. "Of all the…why now?" He backs away and paces around muttering a whole bunch of corporation nonsense that I can't hope to understand.

"Maybe there's an anniversary for the company?" I cautiously ask.

Warren stops pacing and looks at me with wide eyes. "Of course, Nolan' you're a genius! Next week's the company's 150th anniversary! Of course, Dad would go for something as good as Fallier."

I sigh deeply in disappointment. "Oh well, lets see other catering companies, Fallier can't be the only five star one."

Before I could even go back a page Warren lifts me from my seat. Holy shit how strong are you man? "No," he says resolutely. "We're getting Fallier Food catering from my father, no matter what."

I wiggle my way out of Warren's arms. "Dude, come on, we lost this one, let's find another catering company."

Warren fixes me with a critical stare. "No, we're getting Fallier Food catering from my father, no matter what."

"You know you repeated yourself, right?" I point out. I notice him march towards the garage, bumping into Logan and Scott on the way. I sigh in defeat. "Okay, wait for me!"

Jogging for a bit I finally catch up to Warren, slowing down my jog slightly because he has longer legs than I do, so trying to keep up with his march at a slower pace would have him leave me behind again, damn my shorter body. "Why are you so intent on getting this catering from your dad?" I mean, the company has to be run by his dad, right? Oh no, am I being sexist? I'm so sorry, you know what? The company could be run by his mom, maybe his dad married into the family. I feel like a sexist jerk now, great.

"Because my Father's a racist ass who is doing this to get me to 'come back home'. This is all some ploy to have me return and take over, guess what, Father? Your plan only half worked." Warren stated to the air around us.

Great, now he sounds like a psycho conspiracy theorist. Hey! It was his dad, I was right, and I'm not a sexist jerk! "So, let me get this straight, the only reason we lost Fallier Food was because of some plan made by your dad to get you back home? Even though Worthington Industries is having its 150th anniversary in two weeks?" I ask incredulously.

Warren nods vigorously as he opens his car door. "Yes! You understand, oh finally."

"I'm just saying the anniversary seems like a more likely possibility," I get in the passenger seat, Warren starts his car and begins to head towards Worthington Industries. "Besides, how would he even know that graduation's in two weeks?"

Warren thinks for a minute, think I finally put a rational thought in his head. "Spies, he has a spy in the school." Warren says. Nevermind.

I sigh as I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Okay, obviously we won't move forward until you confront your old man, let's go to Worthington Industries then."

The entire drive to the headquarters of Worthington Industries was filled with nothing but conspiracy talk, man, who knew Warren could be a conspiracy nut? I mean, he somehow got to the conclusion that the Illuminati was involved, yeah right, like the Illuminati's a real thing. Is it? Question for another time.

We turn into a garage connected to Worthington Industries, once Warren finds a parking spot, he turns off the car, activates his watch, causing his wings to disappear, and puts on his jacket. Warren turns to me before we exit the car. "Here's what's going to happen: We're gonna go to my Father's office, tell him about the graduation, and then convince him to give us his Fallier Food catering appointment, got it?"

I darted my eyes around, thinking about Warren's plan. "That's a little simple, don't you think? I mean, what if he isn't here, or if he won't want to see us?"

"Trust me," Warren looks ahead, a look of determination on is face. "He's here, and he'll definitely want to see me."

We exit the car and head towards the main building, ready to fight for our food. Our elevator stops at the main lobby, we walk towards the front desk where we find the secretary busy looking at her computer screen. Warren has a look of remembrance on his face as we near the secretary.

"She was my babysitter when I was younger," Warren explained. He clears his throat before placing his hands on the desk in a polite manner. "Excuse me, I'd like to talk with Mr. Worthington immediately, it's urgent."

The tablet next to Warren's hands activates, the secretary doesn't look up from her computer. "Please enter your name and contact information, we'll contact you when Mr. Worthington is available. Please note: our anniversary is coming up soon, so a meeting won't be available for the next two weeks."

"Oh, well, guess Father will have to wait longer to see me again." Warren replies.

The secretary's head jerks up from her computer, as soon as she sees Warren, she places her hand over her mouth in shock. "W-Warren?" She slowly gets up from her seat and places her hands on either side of Warren's face. "Oh my god, y-you're back." She rushes out from behind her desk and wraps Warren in a bear hug. "You're back!"

Warren hugs her back and places his head softly on hers. "It's been a while hasn't it, Linda?"

Linda backs up but keeps her arms wrapped around Warren. "Where have you been Warr? It's been three years since you disappeared. Hell, there were rumors that you were kidnapped by your father's rivals."

Warren's face twitches as he tries to find the right thing to say. "It's a, uh, it's a very long story."

Warren looks to me, probably giving me an unsaid hint to help him. Nah, I'm just gonna watch.

Linda follows Warren's line of sight and finally notices me. She unwraps herself from Warren's arms and walks up to me, her arm outstretched for me to shake. "Oh, sorry for not introducing myself, Linda Baker."

We shake hands. "Nolan Belmont, one of Warren's friend."

"Linda, is my Father in his office?" Warren asks.

Linda turns back to Warren. "Yeah, he's busy now though, he has a meeting with a man named Reed Richards, something about funding for a rocket?"

Warren nods. "Right, is this an in-person meeting or over the phone?"

"In person." Linda answers.

Warren looks at the elevator intensely. "Oh, too bad. Come on, Nolan, we've got a business meeting to crash." Warren marches towards the elevator, surprisingly enough Linda doesn't attempt to stop him.

I look at her and she notices. "When a Worthington puts their mind to something, there's no stopping them."

I think back to earlier. "You got that right, it was nice meeting you," She nods, I turn and jog to catch up to Warren. "Dude, hold up!"

The elevator begins to rise, elevator music playing. After going up two floors I turn to Warren. "Hey, you ever play _Mass Effect? _Cause this totally reminds me of the first one."

Warren doesn't reply, I look and notice his determined face slowly shift to one of fear and apprehension. "Holy shit, I'm about to see my Father for the first time in three years, what the hell am I thinking? Nolan, we gotta go back, get a different catering company, I can't do this."

I look at Warren in surprise. "No. No, no, no. You literally dragged me here, and now we're on the final stretch, we aren't giving up now. Got it, Warren?"

Warren does some breathing techniques to calm down, slowly his look of determination returns. The elevator continues to go up, I look at the screen and see at least ten more floors before we reach the top. Damn, this place is big. "Hey, Warren, what does Worthington Industries work on?" I ask.

"Oh, aviation technology. Some of the Blackbird's tech is actually based off of data I stole from when I ran away," Warren answered. "But aviation tech, how ironic."

"Why did you run away, if you don't mind me asking." I cautiously ask.

Warren sighs deeply as he runs his hand through his perfect hair. "For as long as I can remember I've had my wings, at first, they were easy to hide, but as I grew up so did my wings. When I was 12 the old headquarters was attacked by a mutant due to my Father's…vocal stance on mutants, the building was demolished, nearly everyone in it died."

I look at Warren in shock. "Holy shit, who was the mutant?"

Warren's face adopts a dark look of melancholy. "Magneto. After the attack my Father's anti-mutant stance went from an eight to a sixteen, I just couldn't live under the same roof as him anymore."

"I'm sorry, man. You don't deserve that, no one deserves that." I say in shock. Why do so many humans hate mutants? Would his father have acted differently if he had known Warren's one?

The elevator doors open, on this floor we see giant paintings along each wall, with paintings of each generation of the Worthington family, a son in one photo would be the father in the next. There would be busts in between each photo of the patriarch. Man, Worthington's sure do love the patriarchy. I notice Warren walk up to one of the portraits, this one being the most recent one, so it's obvious who was on this one.

A tall relatively muscular older man with pale blond hair, strong blue eyes and a sharp black suit with a black tie and a white shirt standing behind the chair. A blonde tired looking woman, she also has blue eyes, and is wearing an extravagant pink dress sitting in the chair. And in the woman's lap is a young Warren, he looks to be about six or seven years old, he's wearing a matching suit to his father's. None of them are smiling.

Two very large guards walk up to us. "Excuse me, sirs? Mr. Worthington is currently busy, we regretfully must ask you-" One of the guards says before he stops, recognizing Warren as soon as they reach us. "My god, Warr? Where have you been, boy?"

"Hey, Matt, Terry, how've you guys been?" Warren replies.

Terry and Matt share a look. "We've been good, where have you been, Warr?" Terry looks at me. "Who's this?"

Warren nods his head towards me. "This is Nolan Belmont, he's one of the friends I made over the three years. Is it cool if I go in now?"

Matt and Terry have a silent argument, seems as though these two had worked together for a while now if they can do this. Eventually Matt looks at us. "If your father asks, we had a family emergency." The two leave.

I look at Warren in confusion. "They're brothers, Matt's older by a year, but because of their radically different looks people don't see it until they know it."

We walk to the giant ass double doors. Before Warren opened it, he took a deep breath, muttered to himself, and then fiddled with his watch, turning off the hologram cloak. "Let's do this."

He pushes the doors open. I immediately notice five people in the room. A blond man behind the main desk, he looks extremely stressed, other than the whiter hair and the extra stress lines along his face he looks just like the portrait outside. On the seat to the furthest left of his desk I see a blond guy, maybe a little older than me, his hair is wild but still groomed at the same time. Next to him is a really hot blonde woman, a little older than Warren I'd say, she looks kind of like the blond guy, probably his older sister. To her left is a young man around her age, he has brown hair, wears glasses, and is extremely well groomed. And finally, we see a large red headed man with blue eyes as well, they all stop to look at us.

"What is this!? Why are you in here, where are my guards!?" Warren's dad screamed out. He presses a button on his desk. "Linda! Where are Terry and Matt!?"

"They have a family emergency." Warren replied.

His father stops before slowly going back into his seat, his eyes wide. "Warr?"

"Hello, Father?" Warren says.

The brunette man coughs. "I think we should leave. Please, contact me when you can, I wouldn't mind rescheduling."

The blond guy barks out a quick laugh. "Says you, Reed. I wanna get this project done ASAP, let these guys do their thing after we're done."

His sister slaps him on the back of his head. "Johnny, come on."

The four get up and head out of the office. The redheaded guy nods at us as he passes by us, the blonde lady smiles kindly, Johnny just has an annoyed look on his face. Reed looks at us before he leaves. "Good luck."

I blink as I watch him walk away. Oh, right, he's one of Hank's friends.

Warren stands behind the chairs; I walk up next to him. "You look like you're doing okay, Father. How've things been?'

Warren's father has a look of rage on his face. "Are you serious? 'How've things been?' That's all you have to say? It has been three whole years, Warren! Where the hell have you been!?" His father rises from his seat and slams his fists on the desk.

Warren lifts his shoulders. "What else do you want me to say? 'Hey, I'm back to begin my turn with the company'. Yeah right."

His father breaths heavily, to try and calm himself down, his eyes eventually land on me. "Who is this? One of your 'friends'."

I glare at him. Asshole. "Yeah, I'm one of his friends, no air quotes, and we're not here for what you think."

"What does he mean?" Warren's father demanded.

"Well, I'm a senior now, and my graduation's coming up really soon, two weeks in fact, and we wanted to get Fallier Food to cater, but guess who took it out from under us? You get one guess." Warren rhetorically asks.

His father's angry face becomes flat. "Really, that's why you're here, for some catering service? How childish."

"Childish?" Warren says offended. "This is my graduation, a big change in my life and you consider these actions childish?"  
"Please, Warr-"

"You don't get to call me that! Not anymore." Warren interrupted.

Man, this is awkward. While I question why I was here I notice Warren place his index finger over his middle finger, making it look like an 'X'. Right, the telepathy symbol. Around the end of my combat training we decided to create special hand signs to tell me which powers to use. X for telepathy, so either Jean's or the Professor's powers, O for tech related powers like Sage or Forge, an upside-down V for elemental powers like Vanessa's or Bobby's, and a V for other powers, like Logan's or Scott's.

I activate my telepathy and create a link with Warren. _"What do you want me to do?"_

Warren continues to argue with his father as he telepathically talks to me, which I find to be really amazing, seeing as I still have a relatively hard time holding two conversations at once without accidently saying mixing the two conversations. Confused the hell out of Scott and the Professor when I did that for the first time.

"_Look through his head, don't mess with anything, just see what he's thinking?" _Warren orders.

"_Got it," _In Worthington's head I see a lot of emotions running by, shock, glee, anger, and really deep down I can even find a hint of regret. But most of what occupies his brain is a plan, one to get Warren back into the family's good grace. _"He's trying to manipulate you; he wants to trick you back into the family."_

"_Of course." _Warren takes a deep breath before looking his father in the eyes. "Look, just give us your appointment for Fallier Foods, that's all. If you want us to do something for you then we'll do it, but that's it."

His father sits in his seat, hand on his chin as he thinks things over. "Find another catering company, go to their buildings in person and see if they meet this criterion, it is our 150th anniversary so I will only accept the best of the best."

A list is put in front of us, with five things on a list, damn, that's one hell of a criteria to meet. Must be five stars, no controversy for at least ten years, etc. Those're some serious standards.

Warren nods. "We'll get this done; you'd better meet your end of the deal." We exit the office and head towards the elevator. As we near it Matt and Terry come out of the elevator, both having nervous looks on their faces. Now that Warren mentioned it, I can see come resemblance between the two.

They look at us in apprehension. "So, are our jobs in danger?" Matt asks.

Warren just shakes his head as he laughs. "You guys have been with the company for as long as I can remember, I'm pretty damn sure your jobs are fine," Warren places his hands on their shoulders for a moment before continuing towards the elevator. "We'll be back."

The elevator begins to go down. "What's your plan?" I ask.

"Like you said, he's doing this to manipulate me. But that's not how it's gonna go, knowing my Father he'll try to manipulate me emotionally, thankfully I know that's coming so it won't work out." Warren answered.

"Dude, you've got a shitty old man. No offence." I say.

"Eh, none taken. Anyway, we're gonna turn his manipulation around, by revealing I'm a mutant, but only after he promises to give us the catering. After all, a Worthington never goes back on their word. Only good thing the old man's ever done for me." Warren finishes bitterly.

"What about your mom?" I inquire.

"What about her? She wasn't really there, pretty sure her wine was more of a son than I ever was to her. Besides, Father makes sure she doesn't do much regarding the company." Warren answers.

"Your family fuckin sucks, dude." I bluntly state.

"Oh yeah," Warren says. The elevator finally opens, as we pass by Linda, we both say our temporary goodbyes before heading towards the garage. "Okay, let's head here first, highly doubt it'd meet the criteria but hey, may as well try."

We arrive to the first location, only met the first criteria. One done, two to go. We continue on to the second place, and it was nearby a mall, cool. We go up to the main desk and talk to the front desk guy. Well, Warren does. "Hello there. My name is Warren Worthington III, this is my friend Nolan Belmont," I wave in greetings. "And we are here for-"

The front desk guy excitedly rises out of his seat and practically steals Warren's hand from him. "You're Warren Worthington III? The Warren Worthington III!? Sir this is, oh. L-let me call my boss! Please, wait here!" He drops down into his desk and excitedly pulls out his phone.

Warren and I look at each other in surprise before walking back a step, surprised at his reaction. The front desk guy trips all over his words, pauses for a moment than begins to speak more clearly, eventually he puts the phone down and turns to us. "Please, go into the elevator, Mr. North will see you."

We enter the elevator, thankfully this trip isn't as long as the Worthington Industries one, considering the fact that this building is significantly smaller. The elevator opens immediately to the office, where we find Mr. North waiting for us. "Ah! Welcome Mr. Worthington, please, have a seat, your friend as well."

"Right, thank you, Mr. North. Let me get straight to business. Worthington Industries is having its 150th anniversary in two weeks, we would like to see if your services could provide catering for the event." Warren explains.

Mr. North looks at us in surprise. "I was led to believe that the event was already covered, by Fallier Foods no less. So, I must ask: Is there a reason for this surprise change?"

"A…personal matter, may we please have a run through of your company's history?" I ask.

Mr. North nods as he presses a button on his desk, the computer screen in front of us comes to life. On it we watch a short five-minute video about Mr. North's company. After the video concludes Warren and I look at each other before nodding. "Well, I believe we've found our company." Warren says as he shakes Mr. North's hand.

We exit the building. "Dude, most of the time missions like these only get completed after the last place, not the second. We should celebrate." I say after placing my hands behind my head.

Warren lightly hits me on the shoulder with his elbow before heading towards the mall. And man, after thirty minutes going through that place we realized, there's jack shit in malls. Eventually we stop at a store that has something we find very interesting, we buy two of them, excited to use them later.

We make it back to Worthington Industries, go up the elevator, and enter Worthington's office. Worthington looks up from his computer and has a smirk on his face. "You two surprised me, I honestly thought this would be beyond your ability. Well, a promise is a promise," He gives Warren a paper, we look at it and see a receipt for Fallier Foods. "Fallier Foods is available for your little…graduation."

Warren takes the receipt and turns around, mumbling a thanks in response. "Really now? Warren, nothing?" Worthington sighs deeply as he gets up. "Would you at least tell me if the school is good for you?"

Warren gives off the same sigh before turning around. "Why do you care? You never did before, so why now?"

His father has a look of conflict for a quick second. "Because, if it does not work out you could just come back, begin the process to take over the company, all Worthington men hold at least half of the company by the time they turn 21."

"Why would I want to become a part of a company that very strongly works against mutants. Hell, your actions caused the death of almost a thousand employees." Warren angrily asked.

"That mutie freak is the reason we're against that species! Work with me, you understand the current generation better than I do, you can continue my work." Worthington argued.

Warren looks at me and smirks. Aw yeah, shit's about to get real. Warren and I reach into our little plastic bags from the store in the mall and put on our horse masks, Worthington has an extremely confused and angry look on his face.

"What are those ridiculous things you two are wearing?" Worthington demanded.

"Oh, you know, showing you that anyone can be a mutant," Warren takes off his jacket, his wings spread out, I do the same thing, weirdly enough, my clothes don't tear, but I don't complain. Worthington's face becomes so pale it reminds me of a sheet of paper, or a Microsoft word document. Warren and I flip him off. "Fuck you, Father. Thanks for Fallier Foods, by the way."

Warren and I run forward, jump over Worthington and his desk and break through the windows, flying through the sky with our horse masks on. "Wait, what about your car?" I ask.

Warren's white horse mask with a blond mane looks at me for a moment as we fly. "Shit." We land in an alleyway and sneak towards the garage of Worthington Industries, once we get into Warren's car we drive back to the school, horse masks still on, traffic laws be damned.

* * *

We head to the dining area where we find the rest of the X-Men and the Professor around one of the tables, they all look up once they notice us walk in. "Where the hell have you two been?" Logan asks.

"We uh, we were getting our catering in order." I answer.

"Fallier Foods, all we gotta do is call." Warren says with a thumbs-up.

"Woah, that's top tier, how'd you guys do it?" Jean asks.

"Trade secret," Warren replies. We walk to the table and see a list of names. "What's this?"

The Professor gives the paper to Warren, I stand next to him and read the names, huh, some of these names are pretty exotic, like Shiro Yoshida, and other less exotic names like Katherine Pryde.

"These are the new recruits, right?" I ask the Professor.

He nods in response. "I have the list finalized. Forge and Logan have been helping me prepare the gear we need for this, it may still take some time, but we will eventually begin the recruitment, by this year at least."

"So, who will we recruit, Professor?" Ororo asks.

The tablet in front of the Professor creates a hologram, showing us pictures of the new recruits. "Anna Marie, Remy LeBeau, Katherine Pryde, Jubilation Lee, Shiro Yoshida, Piotr Rasputin, Kurt Wagner, Elizabeth Braddock, and lastly Sean Cassidy. These will be your new teammates." The Professor answers.

We all look at each other, Bobby and I fist bump, John places his arms on Scott's and Hank's shoulders, Ororo and Jean give each other side hugs, Warren, Logan, and Forge all smirk.

"Well X-Men, looks like the team's about to explode, let's all get some rest, we'll need it." Scott orders.

As we head to our rooms I think about the names, one in particular stands out. Why did the name 'Katherine Pryde' sound so familiar?

* * *

**One more chapter! After this it's time for recruitment, and man am I excited for that! You know, when writing this chapter, I noticed something, the original five X-Men are hardly together in any form of X-Men media outside of the comics. In the movies Iceman is more associated with the second generation of X-Men (Or would it be third after _First Class_****), Angel doesn't appear until **_**The Last Stand**_** and he doesn't even have a big role, and in **_**Apocalypse **_**he's only an antagonist who dies. Far as I can tell **_**Wolverine and the X-Men **_**was the only time the original five were together outside of the comics, if I'm wrong please tell me.**

**One more chapter, then it's time to meet the rest of the team, you know, for a while before more and more people join. Thank you for reading, please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome!**


	14. X-Immigrant Song

**Last one, last chapter of the X Arc, and I've gotta say: this is easily the longest arc I have ever written, but I don't think it will be the longest one in the story, after all some of the future arcs are going to be really big. After this there won't be any slice of life esque arcs until the graduation arc, which won't happen until the ninth arc, but man each arc after this one is going to be big.**

**Happy New Year, by the way! Hope you guys had a great first day, and if not, at least things can only go up from there, right? What are your resolutions if you don't mine sharing? Mine are to start a youtube channel sometime in the future, if I do I'll be sure to tell you guys, get started in a career to become a voice actor, workout more (I know, cliche) and become more social. And the only way to get all that done is to work on it. **

**Thanks for reading, here we are with the final chapter of my second arc.**

* * *

**X-Mimic and Storm: Immigrant Song**

You ever meet a god? I did, and man is he awesome. In case you forgot, Ororo pretty much fucked up Sinister and his island last year with a giant ass lightning bolt, and by doing so she gained the attention of _the_ Thor Odinson, one of the Avengers, The Prince of Asgard, The Thunderer, The God of Thunder, and a whole bunch of other titles. A couple of months into her training she decided to invite me, after all, I also have weather control when I want to. And that's where we are now, Thor, Storm, and I are currently on an isolated island, no people nearby allowing us free reign to use a good amount of power.

"Very well done, friend Mimic, your power is growing at a faster rate than I expected, and your skill is becoming more and more refined." Thor complimented.

Man, getting a compliment from a god is something else, weirdly enough it doesn't feel the same as getting a compliment from Logan. Thor nods before turning to Storm, she's on a whole other level when compared to me, hell, even when compared to her when she destroyed Sinister's island. Her skills in flight have become more refined, allowing her to challenge even Warren for the team's best flier, and her lightning abilities have become more focused, allowing her to create even small rain clouds, instead of having to constantly creating giant storm clouds every time she activates her powers.

"Storm, your control over the elements is improving, soon you will not need my aid to channel your power anymore." Thor complimented.

Storm smiles. "Thank you, Thor," She powers down and sits on a nearby rock. "What now? We've been at this for hours now."

"Aye, we have. I believe now would be a good time for some drinks, what say you, friend Mimic?" Thor asks as he sits on a rock across from Storm.

I sit on a third rock. "That'd be great, what kind of drinks are we looking at?"

A giant cask appears out of nowhere next to Thor. "ALE!" He lifts the cask and places it at his lips before drinking it energetically, ale dripping all over the place.

Storm and I share a look before turning back to Thor who, surprise, surprise, is still downing that cask of ale. He stops and looks at us expectantly before stretching out his arms towards Storm, offering the cask, she denies. He does the same to me. "Sorry, underage." I answer.

Thor has a look of confusion on his face. "I will never understand this change in societal norms. When I first arrived upon Midgard everyone drank alcohol, even the babes! Now there are rules upon rules stopping such revelry," He shakes his head in disappointment before having another quick gulp. "Alas, more ale for Thor."

Ah, right, Thor sometimes speaks in the third person, he somehow makes it cool though, don't know how, probably cause he says it at the right time, maybe I should try that. After Thor finishes his ale Storm leans forward. "Thor, if I might ask."

Thor nods.

"Thank you, my question: what is life like with the Avengers?" Storm asks.

Thor mulls over his thoughts for a moment. "Ant-Man is a thinker, so he and I do not have much in common, although I do admire his tenacity in solving problems. Wasp is adventurous, a sister in battle that I will gladly follow to the ends of the realms! Iron Man is a thinker as well, but also a…funny man, I do find his armors intriguing, I wonder what would happen if he were to work with the blacksmiths of Asgard, or the dwarves of Nidavellir" He pauses and sighs deeply. "Then there is The Hulk, where would I even begin? He is a brute, rude, disgusting, infuriating, but he is also a great ally in battle, there would be no other mortal I would be willing to fight alongside. Most of the time."

I nod, seems like I've got a crash course on the Avengers, nice. A thought then comes to mind. "Hey, Thor, you ever think the X-Men and the Avengers could team up one day?"

Thor gains a giant grin on his face. "One could only hope friend Mimic, a battle requiring that much power would surely go down in history." I gain a giant grin at that thought.

We hear some not-so-polite coughing, we turn to see Storm glaring at us. "I would like to state that if our two teams had to unite against a threat, things won't be as easy you two believe they would be."

Ah, she's got a point, if the X-Men and the Avengers ever had to team up we'd have to be fighting one strong ass villain. "C'mon Storm, let us dream. Besides, it's not like we're gonna have to save the earth every other week, that's preposterous." (We now save the earth every other week.) I say cockily. She acts like we're gonna have to fight a planet eater or some shit. (We fight planet eaters and shit now.)

Storm has a small smirk on her face before she gets up. "I'm going to fill up my bottle with some water, Mimic?"

I place my water bottle in her outstretched hand. "Thanks," She nods before walking away. I turn back to Thor to find him drinking from another cask of ale. "Dude, where the hell do those come from?"

"Not Hel, my goats!" Thor replies.

I stare at him blankly, what goats. Something nips at my ear; I hop off my rock to find a massive fucking goat on either side of the rock. I blink in shock. "Yo, what the fuck!"

Thor laughs at my reaction before getting up and walking to his goats. He points to the one on the left. "This one is Toothgnasher," Toothgnasher bleats. "And this is Toothgrinder. But if you wish to call them by their actual names then they are Tanngrinsir and Tanngjóstr."

"Right." I answer. Yeah, I'll just call them Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder.

Thor's head jerks up, almost as if he heard something. "Mimic, not to be rude, but may you please leave, I am receiving a message from Heimdall and it is a rather private matter."

I nod in understanding. "Got it, dude. I'll head to Storm and tell her."  
Thor has a look of confusion on his face once I said 'dude', but he nods otherwise.

Well, time to head to Storm, I really could go for some water right now. On the way to Storm I blink, as people do, but once my eyes open again, I notice something strange. I'm not on the island anymore. Looking around I see that I'm in a tundra, so I activate my Snowbird powers, gaining a resistance to the cold immediately. Strange, Snowbird's powers allow an immunity to cold, there's something to this cold, it's more powerful. I hear something to my left; I quickly shift into an arctic wolf and get ready to leap at whatever comes from around the tree.

"I must say, you have impressive reflexes. For a mortal that is."

A man steps out from behind the tree. He's tall, pale, has black hair, and emerald green eyes. He wears black pants with a green and gold shirt, over that shirt is a long black and green trench coat with some gold accents along the chest and shoulders, his jacket also has a furred collar, and on his head is a headpiece that frames his face with two giant horns that curve back. In one of his arms he has a staff with a blade at its tip.

I growl as he walks in a circle around me, I don't like this guy, he gives off an extremely dangerous vibe.

The man chuckles before he waves his staff, two fuckin' huge wolves appear to his left and right. "Midgardian wolves, so cute seeing them growl, almost like they're the top of the food chain. Newsflash friend, my wolves are far more dangerous."

I look at the wolves and realize he's right, and so I shift back into my human form. "Who the hell are you, do you know Thor?" I mean, he called me a Midgardian, so he has to know Thor, right?

The man's face shifts into a deep scowl as I mention Thor. Guess they do know each other. "My name is Loki Laufeyson, God of Mischief, and yes, I do know that bumbling oaf Thor, unfortunately. Now, who are you?" I look at him confused. He chuckles as he shakes his head. "Please, I told you my name, it's only common courtesy that you do the same, is it not?"

Dude's got a point; besides, I can use this conversation to find a way out of here. "Name's Mimic, I'm a mutant."

Loki nods. "Yes, mutant. You know Thor fought one of you before? Ages ago in the land called Egypt, he was powerful, nearly killed Thor actually, this mutant's name was-"

A massive roar erupts from behind him, from out of the forest three blue giants come rushing at us, clubs raised ready to crush us where we stand. I transform into a bird and quickly take to the sky, Loki and his wolves leap back, Loki escapes while his wolves and the giants battle. Even though the wolves are outnumbered by one they still put up one hell of a fight. Or would it be one Hel of a fight?

I find a cliff overlooking the area we were just at, watching the battle between the two wolves and the one-and-a-half giant. One had died, another was on its last legs. Yeah, it's a good thing I got outta there, those wolves would have torn me apart.

"Fascinating, isn't it?"  
I jump and look to my left where I find Loki leaning against a wall, bouncing a bouncy ball as he watches the battle. "It took me nearly three centuries to perfect those wolves, their names are Bonecrusher and Bonebreaker."

"Not exactly creative." I deadpan.

"Oh, and Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder are?" Loki retorts.

A thunderous crash resounds throughout the tundra, Loki and I look back to see three giant corpses and two perfectly fine wolves. Yup, definitely glad I didn't fight those guys. "Where the hell am I, where are Thor and Storm?"

"You are in Jotunheim, my birthplace," Loki explains as he sweeps his arm, giving me a good idea of what this tundra looks like, an ever-expansive forest covered in ice and a constant snowfall, no sun in sight. "As for Thor and your friend, well, who knows? They could be here; they could be in one of the other Nine Realms."

I blink. Nine Realms? Huh, my first-time off Earth and instead of being on another planet or the moon I end up in a Norse realm, dope. I get up and activate my Sasquatch powers, my transformation is similar to my Beast transformation, although I'm stronger and larger, my fur is still black though. "Take me to them," I rush towards him, grabbing him by the head and raising him into the air, he doesn't look intimidated in the slightest, hell, he looks amused. I don't let this affect me though. "Now."

He raises an eyebrow and smirks. "Of course."

A snap of his fingers and I immediately find myself in another part of the realm, Jotunheim if I remember correctly. I hear footsteps thundering towards me at a slow pace, before I could hide a giant steps up towards me, stopping to look at me once he notices me. "**WHAT ARE YOU?**" His voice sounds like shotguns going off in my ears, and theses shotguns shoot jets breaking the sound barrier, it's not fun.

"Me? I'm nothing but a lost wanderer looking for his companions, you wouldn't happen to have seen them, would you?" I cautiously ask. Why did I ask? Now he's gonna blow out my ear drums again.

**"I DUNNO WHO YOU'RE TALKIN' 'BOUT." **Yup, I am now deaf, great. The giant gets up and motions for me to follow him, may as well, I have nowhere else to go.

I follow the giant, after ten minutes of silence we come across a camp, here I can see five other giants eating a giant animal currently on a spit roast above a fire, a sixth giant can be seen on a makeshift throne overlooking the camp, eating a leg of the animal. The giants all stop once we arrive, looking at me with a critical eye. They begin to speak but I can't hear them, I wasn't overexaggerating when I said I was now deaf. The giant I came with eventually reaches to a box shaped object on his back, covered by the fur of an animal, he puts the box down and lifts the fur, in it I see an angry Thor within a cage.

The giants laugh at Thor, the God of Thunder glares at the leader before beginning a conversation with him, it doesn't get far. The giants continue with their revelries. Thor shakes his head before he looks at me, he pauses in surprise before a look of recognition crosses his face. I slowly make my way to his cage, hoping to not gain the attention of any of the giants, but of course, the leader notices me. Out of the corner of my eye I notice him call out to me, thankfully my hearing is slowly coming back, he speaks to me but I motion to my ears, he understands and waits, I then nod, telling him that my hearing has returned.

"**WHO ARE YOU?**" The giant leader asks.

I stand straight, chest out, chin raised, these are giants, I'm ninety nine percent sure that strength is the only form of respect they acknowledge. "My name is," Shit, I need a strong name, but who do I choose? Ah. "Hercules!"

The giants and Thor all stop to stare at me, the giants break into a guffaw of laughter. Thor looks at me and shakes his head rapidly, I fucked up. The leader stops laughing instantly, it's almost scary. He leans forward and places his hand on the handle of his giant-ass axe. "**YOU AIN'T NO HERULES. NOW, TELL ME WHO YOU REALLY ARE, WHILE YOU STILL CAN.**"

I gulp in nervousness. "C'mon guys, it was just a joke, don't you have jokes here in Jotunheim?"

"**WE DON'T LIKE JOKES.**" One of the giants says. They now all have hands on their weapons.

While this is all happening, I notice Thor has his hand extended towards the south, he looks at me and nods resolutely, great, now I have to stall some giants for who knows how long. "Okay, okay. My real name is Revan, happy now?" I mean, come on, Revan's a badass, that name has to have some weight, right?  
The giants nod in acceptance. Holy shit, Revan has some weight amongst the giants. "**WHAT BRINGS YOU TO OUR REALM, REVAN?**" the leader continues to interrogate.

"I'm just looking for my companions, we were separated when we were forcefully thrown here. Would you happen to know anything about that?" I ask. I can faintly hear the sound of a mystic hammer flying towards us.

The leader leans back in his chair and hums before taking another bite of his food. "**YES, THERE WAS A BRIGHT FLASH O' LIGHT, IN THE SKY, THREE DISTURBANCES, IN FACT.**"

I smile in victory. "Great, do you know where these disturbances were?"

The giant who brought in Thor stepped forward "**I FOUND DIS ONE AT THE BRIGHT LIGHT, FAR EAST,**" He stops to glare at me, the others follow suit. Shit. "**DAT MEANS YOU'RE WIT' 'IM, AND THE ONE UP NORTH TOO.**"

Thor laughs heartily at that. "Thank you, giant, for your assistance in this quest of ours."

Mjolnir rockets into the camp, smashing the cage holding Thor into a multitude of tiny ice and metal shards. I jump at the closest giant before he could properly retaliate, my legs collide with his chest, I hear the wind get knocked out of him before he falls over unconscious, guess he didn't see that one coming.

The giant to my left reaches out and grabs me in his hand, crushing me slowly, thank you Walter for having superhuman durability, sadly, your powers won't get me out of this mess. After a few I decide to use my Untouchable powers, cause I am not calling them my Unus powers. No. Matter. What. With these powers the giant's hand is forced open, I drop down and run around him, while this is happening I switch to my Cyclops powers, stop, and blast him in the face, launching him into one of the giants Thor is currently fighting.

Thor's giant gets back up, but as soon as it does, he smacks it across the face with Mjolnir, a clap of thunder following, the giant's body does a full spin before falling over. Thor thrusts Mjolnir up before bringing it down onto the head of another giant, hitting this one with a lightning bolt, taking this giant out of the fight instantly. Now we just have to deal with the giant that brought in Thor, and the leader. Thor and I stand side-by-side, the giant that brought Thor and I turns tail and runs, the leader turns towards him and barks at him to come back, but soon realizes the futility in that. But as soon as he turns around, he's met with an optic blast and a lightning bolt flying towards his face, once the attacks connect the giant is sent flying into his throne, breaking it upon impact.

Looking around Thor and I bask in the aftermath of our destructive beatdown of the giants, I mean, come on, that wasn't even a fight. Huh, you'd think giants would be tougher enemies. I turn to Thor. "That was rather easy, don't you think?"

Thor nods. "Aye, they were but lowly giants, on the bottom of the barrel as Stark would say. The deadlier Frost Giants will be deeper within Jotunheim."

"How will we know which Frost Giants are deadlier?" I ask.

"The more powerful Frost Giants are white, with blue markings across their bodies. The frost of this realm is under their beck and call, you would do well to avoid them, friend Mimic." Thor warns.

I nod in acknowledgement before going around the camp, gotta get that loot! After a few minutes I find nothing, well, not nothing, per say, just nothing that'd work well back home, seeing as their gold pieces are, well, giant. Thor looks at a giant enchanted map that he rummaged from the leader, eventually he finds an important mark on the map.

"Mimic! Come, look at this." He calls out.

I walk over to Thor and see the map he's looking at, on it I see a highly detailed recreation of where we are, with four special markings on it, three green and one blue. "The blue is where we currently are, the blue dots are points of importance," Thor explains. He points at one of the dots. "This is where I came in, where did you?"

I look at the map confused, how am I supposed to-Oh, got it. I don't know how, but for some reason I felt the urge to point at another one of the blue dots. "Here. Whoa, how'd I know that?"

"These are enchanted maps, when one looks at it, they know their previous route. It is extremely helpful when it needs to be." Thor explains again. Man, this magic shit's really damn cool.

I point at the final blue dot. "So, we gotta go there, cause that's where Storm is, right?"

Thor nods. "Yes," He touches the blue dot, and immediately I feel the now familiar rush of an info dump into my head. He hefts Mjolnir and rolls the map up before holding it under his arm. It looks like he's carrying a tree by its side. "Let us go."

While we walk, we notice the storm clouds become thicker and thicker, well, we don't exactly need the map now, do we? A blizzard and lightning begins to strike the area with extreme intensity, Thor and I share a look before flying towards the storm, I swap to my Angel powers and take to the air, Thor swings Mjolnir and throws himself through the sky. On the way we notice the storm begin to die down, a look of intense worry crosses over mine and Thor's faces.

We land on a hill overlooking the area where the storm just occurred, here we find three blue giants and one larger white and blue giant with hair and a thick beard made out of ice. Ah, that's what they look like. Wait, we're at the edge of Jotunheim, what's he doing here? Thor's face is asking the same questions. Using my enhanced eyesight I notice that the white and blue giant is holding Storm in his hands, I can see her struggle, trying to get out of his grip, one of the blue giants puts down a small, thin box, and as soon as Storm sees it she increases her struggling tenfold.

Ah, crap, I forgot, she's claustrophobic, this is bad. Thor has a look of confusion on his face. "Why is Storm so fearful? Tis but a small box."

"That's exactly why," I reply. "She has claustrophobia," Thor's look of confusion stays. "When she was younger, she was in an accident that had her trapped in a small area for days on end, since then she's had an intense fear of tight spaces."

"Well then, let us free her!" Thor launches himself towards the white and blue giant, lightning arcing off of him and Mjolnir. He swings his hammer into the giant's jaw, launching it yards away, he follows after it. I fly into the air above one of the blue giants, once I reach an optimal height, I switch to my Thunderbird powers and angle myself down in a ramrod straight form, arms out. I land fist first on the giant below me, a thunderous clap emits from the contact, one down, two to go.

I shoulder charge to one of the other giants, using my speed to my advantage. Before I could make contact though a large club is swung into my back, launching me into a tree. I shake my head as I use what's left of the tree to get back up, damn, that actually hurt. The other giant comes rushing at me, attempting to shoulder charge me. I bend my legs and do a backflip kick into its chin as soon as it gets into position, and damn, that felt good. I have been waiting to do that, thank you giant for being my test subject.

As soon as I land the same club from earlier sends me flying into the box Storm is currently trapped in, heh. I get up quickly and stab my fingers into the side of the box, I can feel Storm preparing a blast of lightning. Once the giant begins to charge at us, I rip off the side of the box, a streak of lightning comes flying out and collides with the giant, sending it flying into the forest, smoking.

Storm damn near jumps out of the box, she collapses on the ground and breathes heavily, I lean down next to her and rub her back in calming motions, after a few moments her breathing calms down, she looks at me with thanks in her eyes. "W-where's Thor? How did we get here?" She asks.

"Thor's, uh," A loud clap of thunder can be heard deeper in the forest. "Thor's over there, fighting their leader. Far as I can tell some asshole named Loki brought us here." I answer.

A loud grunt of pain comes from the forest, Thor comes out flying for a moment, he then collides with the ground and makes a small ditch with his body as he slides on the ground. Shaking his head, the God of Thunder hops back up and extends his hand, Mjolnir comes flying from the trees. "Ah, Storm, good to see you are okay."

"Thor, are you okay?" She replies.

He laughs as he tosses Mjolnir between his hands. "Aye! Nothing could be better than a good fight," His smile drops. "Well, an adequate fight would be a better use of words, wouldn't it?"

Looking at Thor I notice that he's perfectly fine, except for some scratches here and there. The giant marches out of the forest, and holy shit, it looks like it's seen better days. One of its arms is missing, chunks of skin are gone, which is gross, and one of its eyes is swollen shut. "Help me defeat him?" Thor asks as he points Mjolnir at the giant, lightning arcing around his arm and the hammer.

Storm's eyes become white, clouds quickly form in the sky with lightning ready to strike, I swap to my elemental powers and activate my fire form. The giant roars before running towards us, its hammer raised, before it could make even a third step the giant is struck by two powerful bolts of lightning and a torrent of fire, killing it instantly.

Thor laughs before pulling Storm and I in with his massive arms. "Today was quite the day. I am proud to call you warriors, and friends to the Prince of Asgard! Your stories will be told for ages to come in Asgard's halls." Thor looks to the sky with a wistful look in his eyes. Gotta admit, that doesn't sound half bad.

"Thor, do you know anyone by the name of Loki?" Storm asks.

Goddammit, well, that moment's ruined.

Thor's look of victory quickly becomes a scowl, that's scary to look at. He sighs deeply before unwrapping us from his arms and walks forward before stopping and turning around. "So, it was Loki who brought us here, was it? I should have known. Where did you learn of his name, Storm?"

"Mimic told me." Storm nods her head towards me.

"When I went to talk to Storm back at the island I some how ended up here, then some tall guy in black, green, and gold revealed himself to me and started to gloat. Said his name was Loki, and that he knew you, didn't seem like your biggest fan." I answer.

"No, he is not," Thor sighs deeply as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Loki is my brother, well, he's adopted, but he is my brother none the less. Due to his recent machinations the Avengers were formed," Thor looks around, seems like he's gonna change the subject. "I find Jotunheim best enjoyed in small doses, and I believe I have met my limit for this visit, let me call Heimdall." Yup, changed the subject.

Thor looks to the sky. "**HEIMDALL! WE REQUIRE A BIFROST BRIDGE! NOW WOULD BE NICE, THANK YOU!**"

Mother of God, or Mother of Thor would be more appropriate, right? Anyways, holy shit, he is loud as fuck, his voice is like thunder. Wait, that was a bad metaphor, but it was the only one I could come up with. After a few seconds a giant rainbow beam pierces the sky and slams into the ground in front of us. JESUS FUCK! Why do gods have to be so damn loud?

Thor looks to us and nods towards the rainbow pillar. "Come, the Bifrost awaits."

Storm and I share a look before shrugging, may as well. The three of us walk towards the pillar, and man, it is hard explaining what I saw in there, a place shrouded in darkness, a land of fire, a realm of gold, a home for the dead, etc. Eventually we end up at the island, once the pillar disappears, I look down and notice an intricate symbol below us.

"Today was…different. We will take the next week off, to recuperate. I will see the two of you later." Thor calls for this Heimdall guy again, another rainbow pillar comes from the sky and washes over Thor, once the pillar disappears so does Thor.

"Well, that happened." Storm says.

"It did. C'mon, we should head back to the mansion, you've got a graduation tomorrow, remember?" I reply. A look of panic crosses over her face, she then quickly runs to our small four-seater jet. Wow, she really did forget about her own graduation, hope that doesn't happen to me.

* * *

"And last but not least, Scott Summers!" Professor Xavier announces as Scott walks up to him in his graduation gown and cap, with a large smile on both of their faces. Once the applaud ends we finally see the graduating Class of 2014: Jean Grey, Warren Worthington III, Scott Summers, Ororo Munroe, Forge, Noah North, and Amanda Cawley.

Ororo, Forge, Noah, and Amanda take their seats. Professor Xavier rolls next to the remaining four. "Now, I know this is a day for all of our graduates, but I would like to bring special attention to these three: Scott Summers, Jean Grey, and Warren Worthington III. These three have now joined Hank McCoy, as graduates! Four of the original five X-Men have now graduated, now we just wait for you, Bobby."  
The entire gym looks at Bobby, he sinks into himself in embarrassment. "This is a great day, seeing my students become adults, but we aren't waiting for only Bobby to graduate, no, we wait for all of you to graduate," The Professor stops and looks at everyone with a look of immense pride on his face. "I believe that's enough from me, come, let us celebrate!"

The graduates and their families exit first, followed by the rest of us. We make it outside and find tables of food set up, employees from Fallier Foods waiting to cater to us, I find Warren and we fist bump. For the next hour we just all have fun, socializing and the likes, eventually Jean calls me over and I see she's with a large group of redheads and brunettes.

"Nolan, I'd like for you to meat my family. These are my parents: John and Elaine," I shake hands with both of them. "My sisters Sara and Julia. And my brothers Roger and Liam. And my cute wittle niece Bekka. Guys, this is Nolan Belmont, he also goes by Mimic."

"I'm not a baby, Jean." Bekka says, although her actions speak otherwise, if the small smile on her face is any indication. She looks to be ten, maybe eleven.

"Nice to meet you guys. So, uh, Jean, any reason you wanted me to meet your family?" I cautiously ask, not wanting to come off as rude.

"A couple of reasons: one, you're the only member of the X-Men who hadn't met them before now, and two, my Dad's a geneticist, and he's interested in your powers." Jean answers.

Jean's dad coughs before stepping forward. "Jean told me about your…encounter with the Purifiers, and how their power dampeners were nearly ineffective against you."

"Oh, finally, I almost thought everyone forgot about that." I say over dramatically, rolling my eyes at Jean, she just smacks me on the back of the head in retaliation. "Ow."

Before the conversation could continue the Professor rolls up to us. "Ah, the Grey family, it has been far too long, hasn't it? How have you all been?"

"We've been good," Jean's mom then pointedly looks at Liam, he just has a shit eating grin in response. "Mostly."

"Wasn't my fault, Mom." Liam shrugs as his grin grows.

The Professor lets out a light laugh. "If I may, could I borrow Jean and Nolan momentarily? It's of extreme importance," Jean's parents look at each other before nodding. "Thank you. Jean, Nolan, with me."

We enter into the recreational area, the rest of the team waiting around one of the counters, looking at holograms of the new recruits and a map of the world. "What do you think about the rest of the Grey family, Nolan? I can't say anything cause uh, you know." Scott says with a smirk.

Jean stands next to him and elbows him in the side. Most everyone smiles at that, everyone but Logan, that is. I shrug before scratching the back of my head. "They're cool, I'm just waiting for them to show off their weird sides, I mean, Jean has one, so they have to also, right?" A spoon flies into the back of my head.

"Alright, alright, please stop messing with the spoons, I just cleaned 'em," Forge complains. He then points to the map, at Louisiana specifically. "Right here, Louisiana we'll find two of our recruits, Remy LeBeau and Anna Marie," He points at Illinois. "We'll find Katherine Pryde here, and Jubilation Lee here in California."

"That's all in America?" Bobby asks.

"Yeah," John steps forward and points at Japan. "Here we'll find Shiro Yoshida, in Russia, Piotr Rasputin, Germany Kurt Wagner, London is where Elizabeth Braddock is and Ireland is where you'll find Sean Cassidy."

Bobby looks at John confused. "What do you mean 'you'll'?"

"Scott, Jean, Bobby, Logan, and Nolan will be going around gathering our recruits. Hank will be in charge of the team during the meantime. Any questions?" The Professor says.

"I've got one," I begin. "How're we doing this, who's first and who's last?"

Forge enlarges Louisiana. "You guy's will be travelling westward, starting in Louisiana, where both Anna Marie and Remy are, and end in Ireland, where Sean is."

I nod at that logic. Makes sense, that way we could save as much time as possible.

Scott steps forward. "When does the mission start?"

"August, I'll give you two months to get ready, I will actually need the two months to prepare your finances and whatnot. Is that okay with the five of you?" The Professor answers.

The five of us look at each other before nodding. Sounds good.

"Well, that's all for this meeting. Go, enjoy the graduation." The Professor says. John goes to the back of his wheelchair and leads the group back out. Well, time to go have fun.

Although, one thing still bothers me: Who the hell is Katherine Pryde, and why is her name so damn familiar?

**X Arc; Complete. Recruitment Arc; Commence.**

* * *

**Finally, we've finished the second arc of my story, thank you for stating around this long, I really do appreciate it. But yeah, the first chapter of the year and the decade is now complete, can't wait to continue this story throughout the year with you guys with me, I really do appreciate it. **

**Oh, right, the sentences in the parenthesis come from 2028 Nolan, after all, this story began in 2028, we're just started in 2013. And another thing, I'm gonna take some elements from the X-Men Evolution series for these next two chapters, but it won't be a copy. Some things I should say too, in the comics John Grey is a history professor, I decided to change that to geneticist, for story reasons. And Loki's look is based off of his Marvel NOW appearance, which is my personal favorite.**

**Thank you for reading! Please, leave a constructive review, tell your friends and family about this story, and remember to stay awesome!**


	15. The Raging Cajun and the Southern Belle

**Here we are with the beginning of the third arc: The Recruitment Arc! I've been waiting for this one, now I can finally include all of our fan favorite X-Men, starting with Rogue and Gambit! Quick note: As I said in the previous chapter, this chapter and the next will take some elements from the television series **_**X-Men: Evolution.**_

**By the way, there's a little mistake I made back in the Mimic and Forge chapter: I said that Avalanche and Toad were already a part of the Brotherhood, when in fact they aren't. Not yet, at least. I made a little edit, thanks.**

**Well, that's enough from me, on with the story!**

* * *

**The Raging Cajun and the Southern Belle**

Here we are, the last week of August is among us, and that only means one thing: Time for a recruitment run. Right now, the team is in the hangar, some ice clones from Bobby and I are putting our things in the _Blackbird, _along with the rest of the team_._ The five of us-Scott, Jean, Bobby, Logan, and I-are standing together with the Professor as he gives us credit cards and our passports and whatnot.

"Hey, Professor, why do we need passports if we're using the _Blackbird_?" Bobby asks.

"You will need to land the jet in private airports that either I or one of my colleagues own, but your passports will still be needed to avoid any unnecessary confusion. Any other questions?" The Professor turns to the rest of us.

Logan lets out a grunt. "How long is this trip gonna last, and how old're they? Cause if they're kids then count me out, can barely handle these two."

"Hey!" Bobby and I say in indignation.

The Professor chuckles before adopting a sheepish look on his face. "Sorry, Logan, but most of them are around Nolan and Bobby's age. In fact, only four of them are older."

Logan growls. "Dammit," He sighs before heading towards the _Blackbird._ "Let's get this over with."

The ice clones melt into nothing, signifying that the work to fill the jet is now done. Forge sends a message to Scott's phone. "Alright, like before, Anna Marie and Remy LeBeau are still in Louisiana, for some reason, good luck you guys, see you in a few months."

"What do you mean 'for some reason'?" Jean asks with a raised eyebrow.

"The two of them have been on the run for a while now, about a month after we found them, actually. I honestly thought they'd be out of Louisiana a long time ago," Forge says. He steps forward and gives each of us a hug, well, except for Logan. "That's enough from me, see you guys later!"

We all say our goodbyes before separating, the five of us to the _Blackbird, _the other five back to the school. Well, time to make new friends, next stop: Louisiana.

* * *

"C'mon chere, we gotta go, Remy can feel her lookin' for us." Remy whispers.

Currently Anna Marie and Remy LeBeau can be found at a dock, well, not at the dock exactly but under it. The two have been running through Louisiana for the past month, why you ask? Because some redheaded woman was hunting the two down for reasons they don't know, well, they have an idea why.

"Why can't we fight her? Ah can do it easily, Remy." Anna Marie says indignantly, ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

Remy places his hand on her shoulder, she jerks away as a reflex. "We can't, chere, who knows what she can do. We'd be better off gettin' outta here. Now."

Before Anna Marie could argue, a noise can be heard in the distance. From around the corner comes a boy around her age, he has black hair and orange eyes, is rather tall for his age and wears a black jacket over a black shirt with an orange 'X' on it. "Come out, come out wherever you are," He kicks over a trash can. "I just wanna talk, nothing else."

Remy and Anna Marie look at each other, where'd the redhead go, why's this guy here? Anna Marie's face quickly becomes determined. "C'mon Remy, he's a lot younger than she is, we can take 'im out easy."

"No. For all we know he could be wit' her," Remy argues. He looks back through the space between the boards and sees that the boy has disappeared. "Chere, we got a problem: he's gone."

"Uh, ah found 'im." Anna Marie says shakily.

Turning around Remy sees the boy a few feet away from them, a smirk on his face. "There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you," He offers his hand out to them. "Come, I have an offer you can't refuse."

Remy sneakily jerks his arm; a playing card appears in his hand. Once the boy gets closer Remy quickly throws the card at him, the card glows pink and lets out a high-pitched noise as it flies through the air. Once it collides with him an explosion erupts. Remy takes a hold of Anna Marie's arm and runs away. "C'mon, chere! Let's get de hell outta here!"

Once the smoke clears Nolan gets up from his spot on the ground, growling as he wipes the dust off of his jacket. "Well, that didn't work out like I thought it would," Nolan then shifts into Scott. "Let's try that one more time."

* * *

"GET UP!"

A foot kicks into the side of my seat. God, what the hell? Opening my eyes, I see an annoyed Logan look down at me, I glare, he smirks in response. "Get up, kid, we're here."

Getting up from my seat I see an equally groggy Bobby get out of his seat, complaining the entire time. "The hell, man, couldn't you have shaken us or something?" He complains. He's gotta point though, then again, it is Logan, that's what's considered a nice wakeup.

"How long was the flight?" I ask as I put on my black jacket.

"About an hour," Jean answers. "Honestly, I'm surprised at how quickly you two fell asleep."

Bobby and I smirk. "When you stay up all night playing _Halo _you learn to sleep when you can, I honestly think it's my greatest superpower." I boast.

Scott chuckles as he lowers the ramp. "Alright, the Professor called ahead, there's a hotel nearby, he already got us three rooms, one for Jean, another for Logan and me, and one for you two. It's a precaution though, our plan is to recruit as fast as possible, so we probably won't stay for long."

We get off the ramp and find a very nice car, a limousine to be exact, waiting for us right now. Damn, the Professor's got money on top of money, I wonder where it all comes from. We enter the car, where one of the Professor's old friends can be seen in the driver's seat, the five of us in the back watching some random show on the TV in the back. As we drive an emergency broadcast from the local news goes off.

"_This just in: At one of the local docks an explosion had occurred, although there was something strange about this explosion, it was pink. Local authorities are currently lost on how to deal with this mysterious event, although many believe this to be caused by either metahumans or mutants. If you have any information to share, please call this number._" The newscaster says.

Logan leans forward in his seat. "You hear that?"

The limo turns. "Yes, already on it Mr. Logan, sir."

"Okay, Logan, Nolan you two use your enhanced senses, try to figure out who was there. Jean, use your telepathy, see if anyone has anything to add to this little mystery of ours, and while you're at it could you make us look like we belong there? Like, we're detectives, or something," Scott asks with a hopeful voice. "Bobby, we'll ask questions, look for anyone strange. Got it?"

Logan nods, the rest of us give a thumbs up. The car stops, once the door opens, we find ourselves at the scene, and holy crap, that was one hell of an explosion. We walk right by the yellow tape, no one looking twice as we do. I swap to my Thunderbird powers and use my specialized tracking powers. Well, that's interesting.

Logan walks up next to me. "There were three people here, one of 'em was Mystique."

I nod. "Yeah. The explosion was caused by the guy, it has his mark on it. Far as I can tell him and Anna Marie were running from Mystique, but that makes me wonder: how'd she get so close to them?"

"Mystique's powers may not be the flashiest, but they're still damn effective. Besides, she's got the skills to get the most use outta her powers." Logan growls.

Jean walks up to us. "There's someone here, Remy." Logan and I look at her in surprise.

"What's he doin' here, where is he?" Logan asks, arms ready to pop out his claws. "If he's here Mystique could be nearby."

Bobby and Scott join us. "One of the people was nearby last night, said Remy and Anna Marie looked like they were being hunted when they got here," Scott looks at Jean and I for this next part. "Said they were being hunted by a redheaded eighteen-year-old young woman who then became a black haired, orange eyed fourteen-year-old boy, after that she became a brown-haired young man wearing red sunglasses."

Jean and I look at each other in surprise. "The hell? D-did you get a-" I ask. Bobby raises a notebook, showing a very clear sketch of Jean, he turns the page and I see one of me, and on the next page one of Scott. "Ah, shit. I see what she's doing: she's transforming into us and attacking them, that way they wouldn't trust us when we get to them."

"You're right. Damn, this is gonna be problematic. Let's get outta here, but stay close, Remy's here, don't want to lose him. Jean, could you get ahold of the Professor?" Scott orders.

We go to the car; Jean drops our illusion as she begins the telepathic call towards the Professor. "_Ah, Jean, how goes the search?"_

_ "It's not starting out so hot, Professor. Mystique got here before we did, she shapeshifted into Nolan, Scott, and I, most likely to make them less likely to trust us."_ Jean informs the Professor.

_"I see, this will be problematic. How has your progress been in finding the two?"_ The Professor asks.

_"Remy and Anna Marie were together when they were attacked by Mystique, Remy caused an explosion, we checked out the scene and found him there." _Scott says…thinks? I never thought about that did I? Wait, getting off track.

A knock can be heard on the window behind me, I turn around and lower the window, coming face-to-face with Remy. He's glaring at me with his black and red eyes (Which are fuckin' cool, even to this day). I see a glowing pink card in his hand. This is not going to be fun. Thankfully I still have my Thunderbird powers active, cause next thing I know there's a giant pink explosion and I'm now flying through the air.

Leaning up from my spot on the ground I see what's left of the limo, thankfully the driver is safe, so are Scott and Jean, Bobby's in his ice form and I see Logan healing from the damage. I get up, but before I could take a step forward an extremely soft hand grabs me by my hand. Confused, I follow the hand to see an even more surprised Anna Marie looking at me. "How-" She jumps away from me, before I could ponder what just happened another card collides with me.

"Why are you attackin' us!? You better tell Gambit now, or else." He flicks his wrist, five cards are in his hand, glowing menacingly.

"Lemme say this now: we weren't the ones who attacked you earlier today, hell, we just got here." I explain. It's futile.

Three of the cards hit the ground around me, while I'm falling from the sky, I see him throw one at Jean and Scott and the other at Logan and Bobby. I see Anna Marie sneaking up behind Jean, her hand ready to grab her, what is her power?

I land in a heap and quickly shift into my Marvel Girl powers, I hear screaming from both of the ladies, Jean slowly falls into unconsciousness, Anna Marie grabs her head in pain. "What's happenin' to me!? SHUT UP!"

A massive telepathic blast erupts from her, knocking everyone but me out. Good thing I swapped-

* * *

Anna Marie is currently in the fetal position, in agony from all of the voices in her head. Why won't they stop? It's her fault, that redhead did this. Anna Marie looks up to see that the guy with black hair is still up somehow, wait, he's knocked out. A woman with red hair, blue skin, and yellow eyes stands over him, her hand still out in a chopping motion.

"M-mama?" Anna Marie's head has another pulse, more voices sound off in her head. "W-what's happenin' to me? Ah keep hearin' voices."

Mystique walks towards Anna Marie, she carefully places her hand on her shoulder in a calming motion. "My dear girl, it seems to be her fault," She points to an unconscious Jean. "But I know how to help."

"Wait, those two, the guy with black hair and the one with brown, they attacked Remy and me, she did too, why?" Anna Marie asks as the pain in her head begins to fade away.

"I don't know, let's take her with us, we can ask then. Bring your friend." Mystique orders as she grabs Jean by under her shoulders, Anna Marie puts on her gloves and does the same to Remy. The two leave the area, dragging Remy and Jean with them.

* * *

Ow, my neck fucking hurts, what the hell happened? I rub my head as I get off of the ground, looking around I notice paramedics around us, and people watching us, recording us with their phones. I look around and see that Anna Marie and Remy are gone, so is Jean.

I hear a groan from Logan, turning to him I see him get up, rubbing his head and a look of immense annoyance on his face. He looks around and growls at one of the paramedics who attempts to help him, once he notices that I'm up he walks to me and offers a hand.

Once Logan helps me up, I wipe the dust off my shoulders. "We've got a teensy tiny problem: Jean's gone."

His eyes widen, he looks around frantically and begins to sniff the air, after a minute he growls in anger. "Dammit, they took her. Mystique was here too."

"That must be how I got knocked out," He looks at me confused. "I swapped to my telepathic powers before Anna Marie let out a telepathic burst, knocked everyone in a wide radius out."

"She's a telepath?" Logan asks. Bobby and Scott begin to wake up.

"No, it was weird, she placed her hand on Jean, once that happened, they both screamed, and Jean was then knocked out. But that's not the weird part, she did the same to me, but nothing happened, she seemed more shocked than me when that happened." I explained.

"What happened? Where's Jean?" Scott asks.

"Kidnapped." Logan and I reply.

"WHAT!?"

"Calm down, Slim, I'm already on it. Frosty, how are ya?" Logan turns to Bobby.

Bobby rubs his head as he raises his other hand in a so-so motion. Logan looks at what's left of the car before looking at me, giving me a look. I roll my eyes before activating my time powers, I repair the car, ignoring all the sounds of intrigue from the civilians watching.

"Well, did you find them?" Scott asks, with a little bit of franticness in his voice.

Logan growls for the umpteenth time. "Mystique's learnin'. Pretty sure she placed down some chemical that stops me from properly sniffin' them out."

Scott makes a noise of disappointment before sighing deeply. "Nolan?"

I swap to my Thunderbird powers. I use what I now dub my hunter senses and collect everything I can from the area, I close my eyes and see things in a birds-eye-view, watching the path made by Mystique and Anna Marie, dragging along Jean and Remy with them. Where the hell are they going? After a few minutes of intense focus from Anna Marie, Remy's eyes burst open, I can see the three of them talking, hm, Anna Marie's looking pretty friendly with Mystique. Eventually Remy takes a hold of Jean, the group continues to walk through back alleys and empty streets, they then enter an abandoned building at the edge of the city.

"Found 'em. Abandoned building, way down south of here." I announce.

Scott marches towards the car. "Come on, what are we waiting for?"

Logan pats me on the shoulder, what'd I say, compliments from Logan are just something else. Bobby and I fist bump before we head to the car. Once we enter, we see Scott in the driver's seat. "Nolan, get in the passenger seat, you'll lead us to them."

For the next hour drive, which makes me wonder, how long were we out for? This Anna Marie's pretty dangerous when she wants to be. Now that I think about it, she wasn't in control when she had the telepathy, did she? That's problematic. "Guys-oh, left here-when Anna Marie had Jean's powers she was screaming, I don't think she has control over her powers, that might pose a problem, don't you think? Here it is."

Scott parks the car a ways off, he then turns it off. "Alright, you guys heard Nolan, Anna Marie can't control her telepathy, we need to be careful. But remember, the goal is to recruit them, so don't attack them, only defend yourselves, Mystique's the one we've gotta go for."

"That's the thing, Anna Marie looked pretty cozy with Mystique in my hunter vision, take that how you will." I warn the others.

Scott's face immediately drops, well, looks like Remy and Anna Marie aren't gonna have a good time, are they? He shakes his head before adopting a neutral look again. "That doesn't change the mission, it's entirely possible that Mystique's manipulating her."

We nod before exiting the car, advancing slowly to scope out the place. "Now what?" Bobby asks, icing up in the process.

"Bobby, you and I'll burst in from the front door, gotta get their attention. Logan, find Mystique and take her out. Nolan, find Jean. Got it?" Scott orders.

We all nod, from behind his glasses Scott's eyes glow intensely, he raises his glasses, destroying the entire front part of the abandoned home, before the dust could fully settle Bobby fires in a beam of ice. While this is happening Logan and I sneak to the back, we find a cellar door locked by a chain, we go through the cellar door, no longer locked by the chain.

I touch the ground first, and as soon as I do a brick swings into my face, thankfully I have my Thunderbird powers active, so the brick was only effective in blinding me temporarily. Logan lands quietly and becomes a blur, avoiding every other trap in the basement. Knowing about the traps I begin to keep an eye out for any other traps, while I do this, I hear explosion from up above, seems like Remy's putting up a good fight. Looking through I find a door partially open; I look inside and find Jean. Mission success.

Before I could push the door open any further a trio of claws pop in front of my face. "Oh, hey Logan," Looking at the claws I notice they're not adamantium, they're bone. Wait, what? Another trio of bone claws erupt from the door, in reflex I jump back, the claws stop a few centimeters from my face. "You're not Logan!"

The door is torn off the hinges to reveal a feral looking Anna Marie. Wait, is she like me? "Hey, hey, HEY!" The first two 'heys' were my attempt at getting her attention, the third was from me avoiding a swipe from her. "Hold up, listen to me!"

"Why should Ah!?" She roars in response. She nicks me in the shoulder, the bone tips break as they connect with my face, sadly may jacket didn't fare so well. "All you and your friends have done is attack Remy and me! What did we do?"

She lunges at me, I grab her arm and swap to my Wolverine powers, my claws erupt from my knuckles, she stops and stares in surprise. Before this revelation could continue my nose picks up a familiar scent, looking behind her I see Logan on the ground, knocked out. I look back at her with a stern look in my eyes. "What'd you do to him?"

Her claws return inside, I can feel her calm down, so I let go of her arm. "Are you like me?" She asks.

"That's what I'm wondering, but I feel like there's something different about our powers. It looks like the powers you gain cause the person to, what, fall asleep. I just copy powers by seeing them in action," I explain. "Wait, where's Jean, is she okay?"

"The redhead? Yeah, she's fine, Mama just wanted to keep her knocked out cause of her telepathy," She replies. We look in to see Jean a sleep on a bed, her limbs tied together. "Don't worry, she's fine. Wait, weren't your friends fightin' Remy and Mama just now? Cause it's pretty quiet now."

Looking up I notice that she's right, it is eerily quiet. I look towards the stairs, neither Scott nor Bobby are coming down, shit. Turning around I come face to neck with something white and blue, looking up I see a smirking Mystique standing where Anna Marie was, double shit. Turning around I find the actual Anna Marie, who is currently iced up, and Remy coming down the stairs, dragging Bobby and Scott down the stairs, triple shit.

I feel the barrel of a gun placed on the back of my neck. "You're outnumbered, boy, give up while you still can." Mystique orders.

Plan. I slowly turn around, as I do, I swap to my Remy powers, or would it be Gambit, he did call himself that earlier. I look Mystique in the eyes, she looks at me confused before her eyes quickly widen, I take a hold of her gun, and dodge as she fires, I feel the molecules of the pistol accelerate, it glows orange and lets out a familiar high pitched noise. Mystique and Anna Marie leap back, Remy does the same to one of his cards, we throw our weapons at each other. The explosion from the collision causes intense damage to the basement, everyone flies from the explosion.

Huh, that's interesting, the explosion doesn't have as much of an effect on me as it did earlier, thank you new powers! Mystique is currently on one knee, getting her bearings, Anna Marie's leaning on a wall, Remy's up, three more cards in his hand.

"Why are you guys huntin' us down!? Answer me!" He throws the cards at me. Thanks to my training I easily dodge the cards. I grab some small pebbles and super charge them, throwing them in return, he does the same.

"We just wanna talk! Hell, we just got here, if you'd stop and listen, you'd know that we weren't the ones to attack you, goddammit!" I argue back.

"Liar! You, her, and the brown-haired guy with glasses have been attackin us for a month now!" Anna Marie screams.

"I have a question: What are Mystique's powers? C'mon, I'll give you three guesses." I ask. C'mon, take the hint you two.

Both of their eyes widen, Anna Marie looks down, I can tell she's having trouble accepting this information. Remy, on the other hand, narrows his eyes at a now perturbed looking Mystique. "Hate to say it chere, but he's gotta point, your mama can shapeshift."

"Mama?" Anna Marie looks at Mystique with extreme hurt obvious on her face.

"Don't believe him, darling, he's lying. And you, Remy, can you really believe the boy who you've known for only a short time, and during that time he's done nothing but fight you, I've been helping you two for weeks now." Mystique falsely pleads.

Wow, if I hadn't known her, I would have believed her. Shit, he's looking like he's starting to believe her now, what do I do, what do I do? Aha! I activate my telepathy and connect the four of us, I then put us into a telepathic conference room, something I've just recently mastered thanks to Jean and the Professor.

"What is this? Let us out of here." Mystique demands.

I smirk in response. "This right here is a telepathic conference room, here no secrets can hide."

"Let us out." Anna Marie gets up from her seat.

Remy places a hand on her arm, she jerks away in response, guess her fear of being touched is really deep seated. He looks at her with determined eyes. "Chere, if he wanted to, he could've taken us out wit' a telepathic blast," he folds his hands together. "Let's here 'im out."

"Thanks. Well, without further ado, let's look at Mystique's memories. Or should I say…Raven?" I smugly say. She jumps out of her chair; it wraps around her and locks her in place.

The room around us becomes a first-person view of someone in a hotel room, this person is currently in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, staring back we see Mystique. "This is her memories, you two, straight from the source." I explain.

Her frown becomes a smirk as she shapeshifts into Jean, I can hear a gasp from Anna Marie. She exits the room and begins her hunt. Looking through the memories I see nothing of importance, so I skip ahead to a few hours before stopping, we can see a diner across the street, in one of the booths we can see Remy and Anna Marie together.

She enters the building, and from there we see the beginning of Mystique's terror campaign against the two. I skip ahead through days, showing Mystique's constant invasion into their lives, eventually we get to late last night where she shapeshifts to me, from there I stop.

"Well, you look pretty stupid right now." I mock.

She growls at me before turning to the two. "Don't believe him you two, he's a telepath, this is all fabricated! Please, you must listen."

Remy looks at her with narrowed eyes, Anna Marie looks at her disappointed. "Mama, my short time as a telepath taught me something important: how to tell which memories are fake and which are real, and that felt real. Just, why? What do you gain from this?"

Mystique growls once she realizes this lie won't work anymore. "I'm making you stronger, what we're planning in the future will only help mutants, and I want the two of you with me," She glares at me. "Not with those pathetic X-Men."

"Wait, X-Men? Dear god, you had us fight the X-Men!? Are you crazy!?" Remy yells at her. "Remy's seen enough, get us outta here."

I deactivate the telepathic conference room. Opening my eyes, I see my teammates standing over the three of them. Mystique's currently trapped in an ice prison courtesy of Bobby. "Nice one, Nolan, couldn't have done it better myself." Jean compliments.

"Damn-" Mystique disappears in a blur of blue and silver.

Scott and I look at each other before a look of anger comes across both of our faces. Goddammit, Quicksilver was here again.

Anna Marie gets up and cautiously taps Jean on the shoulder. "Hey, uh, ah'm sorry for earlier, ah didn't know."

Jean smiles. "It's okay, Mystique's one hell of a manipulator, no hard feelings, for either of you."

Anna Marie and Remy smile in thanks. The house then rumbles, ah, right, Remy and I caused a pretty big explosion, didn't we? The seven of us quickly run out of the house, exiting through the cellar door, we turn around to see the house collapse in on itself. From the distance we can hear sirens.

"We shouldn't stay here, c'mon, we've got a car," Scott says. We all head to the limo, the driver quickly gets us out of there. "So, how was your day?"

Remy looks at him with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, y'know, pretty average, was manipulated, fought de X-Men, blew up a house, which was awesome, by de way." He and I fist bump.

"Are you really the X-Men?" Anna Marie asks.

"You know it," Bobby boasts. He leans towards her, getting in her personal space, she leans back in response. "Name's Bobby, by the way, or Iceman if ya feel like it."

Remy glares at him before pushing Bobby back by his face. "As pretty as chere is, ya don't wanna get to close, trust me, I tried."

We all look at a blushing Anna Marie. "Mah powers allow me to absorb the life force of anyone ah touch through skin contact, ah can't control it."

"But you touched me earlier, and nothing happened, what's that about?" I ask.

She adopts an equally curious look on her face. "Ah don't know, what are your powers?"

"I can copy the powers that I've seen, or the person who has them has to thoroughly explain them to me. Maybe it's because our powers are so similar that yours just don't work." I answer.

We eventually make it to the airport, once we exit the car Anna Marie and Remy stop and stare in shock at the _Blackbird_. "Yeah, we've got our own jet." Scott boasts.

"Do you have any clothes and other things? I can go with you to get them." Jean offers.

Remy coughs awkwardly. "All our stuff was in de house, sooo yeah."

That's problematic. "Don't worry, we've got toiletries in the jet, and we can buy you guys more clothes." I tell them.

"Thanks, we really appreciate it. So, are we goin' to New York now?" Anna Marie asks as she takes a seat next to Remy.

"Nah, we've got a list of people to recruit," Logan activates the hologram in front of their seats, they look at it in surprise. "We'll be travellin' the world, you guys were first, we're headed to Illinois next."

"Ooh! A thought just came to my head: superhero names! What're you guys gonna call yourselves?" Bobby asks excitedly.

Anna Marie and Remy look at each other before both shrugging. "I could be, uh, Gambit?"

"And…Rogue?" Anna Marie offers.

"Nice, nice, I like it. Well, as I said before, I'm Iceman, Nolan's Mimic, Scott's Cyclops, and Jean's Marvel Girl." Bobby says.

We all then talk about random things, getting know each other better as we begin the flight to Illinois, which should last a couple of hours. Well, time to meet you, Katherine Pryde, and to finally figure out why your name is so damn familiar.

* * *

Outside of Louisiana a blur of blue and silver stops. Mystique's temporary ice prison melts due to the friction from the speed, she is then gently placed down by Quicksilver. "Are you okay?" He asks her, genuine worry in his voice.

Mystique waves away his concern. "I'm fine, really. Thanks for getting me out of there, by the way. So, where's our ride?"

Quicksilver points up. A jet comes down from the sky, once it lands the ramp comes down, from the top three people can be seen, on the right is a young woman with brunette eyes and brown hair, a red headpiece around her face, she's wearing a scarlet red form fitting trench coat. To the left is Mastermind, looking extremely angry, a black eye prominent on his face.

In the center is a tall, muscular man wearing red and purple armor, a cap flourishing behind him and a helmet over his head, his face exposed. Looking at the man one can easily see the relation between him and Quicksilver. He walks to the bottom of the ramp and stops in front of Mystique. "Any new information on their new recruit?"

"His name's Nolan, his powers allow him to copy other powers that he's either seen or had explained to him by the one with the powers. They got Remy and Anna Marie." Mystique answers.

"A setback, but not one we can't recover from. Why were they here, just for them?" He continued.

"Yes, I believe the X-Men are on another recruitment run, I'd make the suggestion that we get our people out there, cause them problems, Magneto." Mystique answers.

Magneto folds his arms and hums, after a few seconds of thinking he turns around, the other three following him. "Stay down here, you will be in charge of our own recruitment, don't fail me. Quicksilver, assist her" Mystique and Quicksilver nod before walking away.

Magneto sits in the passenger seat of the jet, Mastermind in the pilot's seat. "Well, Charles, I see you've made your first move, good play, good play. Now it is my turn."

* * *

**First chapter of the third arc done! Thank you for reading, I appreciate it. So, if you don't mind can you tell me how well Rogue and Gambit's accents were? I'd really appreciate it. Oh yeah, fun fact: Mystique's pretty tall, she's 5'10, like, damn, you tall. **

**MAGNETO WAS RIGHT! I can't wait to write more of him in the future, he's such an interesting character. So yeah, this isn't just the X-Men's Recruitment arc, it's also the Brotherhood's, so look forward to that. **

**Thank you again for reading, please leave a constructive review, I'll see you next week. And remember stay awesome!**


	16. Shadowcat Got your Tongue?

**Next chapter let's go! This is a chapter I've been waiting for quite some time, and now we're finally here. Thanks for reading for this long, I really do appreciate it. Now then, let's get on with it, shall we?**

**Question: has any other story taken as long as mine to introduce the love interest? I mean, it took sixteen whole ass chapters to introduce Kitty. If I'm wrong please tell me in the reviews. Holy hell fuck, this quickly became my biggest chapter so far. Well, here's to more massive chapters in the future!**

* * *

**Shadowcat Got Your Tongue?**

"So, you guys ever travel out of Louisiana?" Bobby asks.

"I've travelled outta home a couple a' times, but never dis far." Remy replies.

"Ah lived in Mississippi for most o' mah life, Louisiana's actually the first time ah've been outta state. And now we're about tah travel all around the world, damn." Anna Marie answers with awe clear in her voice.

"I was in the same boat as you guys, kinda. My family and I would go to London every summer to stay with my Grandma, after joining the X-Men I've traveled to Canada and a Norse realm called Jotunheim." I say as I lean back.

"Why'd you put Canada with some Norse realm, Shifty?" Logan growls at me menacingly.

"Hey, Canada's pretty foreign to me, I mean, a place where everyone's nice? That has to be foreign." I reply, smirking at his scowling face. He throws an unlit cigar in my face. I throw it back at him, he dodges out of the way, so it hits Scott in the back of the head.

"Logan, where the hell do you get your cigars? I swear they never run out." Scott asks in both awe and annoyance.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," He gets up and leans on Jean and Scott's seats, looking at the GPS. "How much longer 'til we get there?"

Jean messes with some instruments that are far to advanced for me to understand. "About another fifteen minutes. So, sit down and quit complaining you big baby."

Logan grumbles as he takes his seat, he lowers his hat over his face and leans back in his seat. "So, who else is on the team?" Remy asks.

"There's Warren, he's Angel-" I begin.

"He's blonde, has big ass wings." Bobby adds.

"Hank, or Beast-"

"Big, blue, and beautiful."

"John, goes by Thunderbird-"

"Muscles on muscles."

"Forge. Just Forge-"

"Our technician."

"Ororo, you can call her Storm-"

"She can control the weather, it's badass."

"And then there's Professor Xavier, everyone also calls him Professor X." I finish.

"He's got big brain power." Bobby also finishes.

"Right, right. So, who're we gettin' here?" Anna Marie asks.

I activate the holograms in front of each of our seats. "This here's a list of the people we're recruiting, as you can see the two of you are at the top, your names are dimmed cause we've got you. Going down shows you who's next."

"So, we're ending in Ireland to get dis here…Sean Cassidy? Whoa, we're goin' to Japan? Remy's always wanted to go dere." Remy looks through the list, clicking on each name.

"How much info do y'all got on each of us? Cause I don't know how I feel about someone else havin' mah personal information on hand." Anna Marie says as she looks at Jubilation Lee's profile.

"Not too much, just info on your powers, where you live, and how old you are. Granted the living part may seem a little intrusive but trust us, it's better that we found you instead of the Brotherhood." Scott says as the _Blackbird _begins to land.

"De Brotherhood? Who's dat?" Remy gets up from his seat, heading towards the now lowering ramp as soon as the landing process is completed.

"Think of them as the more extreme version of the X-Men, instead of fighting for peace between humans and mutants they just want a world for mutants, no matter what. Mystique's one of them." Bobby explains.

"Oh, ah heard about them, they're led by some feller named Magneto, right?" Anna Marie asks with a dejected look on her face at the mention of Mystique, I elbow Bobby at that.

"Alright, that's enough Brotherhood talk for one day, there's another limousine waiting for us. C'mon, let's go recruit a new teammate." Scott says as we walk to the limo, this time he's in the driver's seat with Logan in the passenger.

"How much money does de Professor have?" Remy looks around in awe, pressing buttons causing a whole bunch of shit to happen in the back. A small disco ball comes from the roof, smoke comes slithers from under the seats and music blares from the speakers. He quickly presses the buttons again and looks at us sheepishly. "Remy apologizes."

I sigh deeply. This is going to be one hell of a trip. Jean and Anna Marie begin to converse about whatever, Remy and Bobby play some _Street Fighter IV _on the built-in console. I decide to lay on the seat, resting my eyes for however long I can. But its hard, for some reason I feel extremely nervous and I don't know why, but I have a hunch: Katherine Pryde has something to do with this. Well, we're meeting her, there's only one way to find out.

* * *

Kitty Pryde's currently in a nightmare, being chased by some demons for an unexplained reason. After who now's how long she finally trips, the demons take advantage of this by leaping at her, but before they could make contact she sinks through the floor.

Waking up screaming Kitty finds herself in the living room of her home, falling on the table she lets out another scream of pain. Her parents quickly come running down the stairs. "Kitty! Are you okay?" Her father leans down to her and holds her, looking around for any intruders.

"I-I'm fine, Dad, just another nightmare." She replies.

"Are you fine for school today? You don't have to go if you don't want to, Kitty." Her mom offers as she rubs her back.

Kitty takes a deep breath before getting up with the help of her dad. "No, no, it's fine, I can go to school today."

Her mom looks at her concerned before cupping her face. "If you're sure-"

A knock is heard from the door, her parents look at each other and open the door. On the other side they see a tall brunette young man with red sunglasses, to his left is a redheaded girl of the same age, his right a short, feral-looking black-haired man, and behind them is a black-haired boy around Kitty's age.

"Hi, would you happen to be Carmen and Theresa Pryde? My name is Scott Summers, my friends are Jean Grey, Logan, and Nolan Belmont." Scott begins.

Kitty's head perks up at that last name, she squeezes her way through her parents and stops in front of the group, looking at him she realizes that he does look a lot like him. "Holy crap, Nolan?"

* * *

We all blink at that, so she does know me, well, that's one mystery solved. I step forward and get a good look at her, yeah, she does look familiar, but where do I know her? "Uh, yeah, I'm Nolan. Sorry if this seems rude, but, uh, do I know you?"

Her face drops at that. "Yeah, I don't blame you, it has been some time since we last saw each other, hasn't it?"

Her dad places his hand on her shoulder. "Come inside, we can continue the conversation in our living room."

We follow them to the living room, he goes to the kitchen and comes back, handing us some water bottles. We give him a thanks as he sits down. "May as well get this out of the way now, shall we? Back when you were really young, from the ages of five to seven, actually, we had family who lived close to yours, Nolan. When we'd visit you, Kitty, and Kenny would play together for practically all of summer."

A rush of memories suddenly hit me. Why did I forget this? I look at Kitty and sheepishly scratch the back of my head. "Sorry about forgetting, I've just been through a lot lately."

She smiles kindly. "It's fine, I honestly forgot what you looked like, too. Sorry."

Logan coughs not so subtly. "That's great, kid, you found your childhood sweetheart," Kitty and I blush at that insinuation. "But we're here for a reason, remember?"

Right. Scott leans forward in his seat. "Let me get right to the point: We're here to offer your daughter a place at our school, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."

"Wait, Xavier? How's he been?" Kitty's dad asks.

"You know the Professor?" I question him.

He nods. "The two of us served together in the military years ago. He actually built that school of his, I remember him going on and on about it during our tours. Where is this school, and why now? The school year just started."

"We're going around the world, recruiting more staff and students for the school, we just started actually, our first two recruits are currently at a hotel right now with another student, Bobby Drake." Jean answers.

"Travelling the world? Why?" Kitty's mom asks.

"Our school's staff and student body is…special, Logan?" Scott turns to him.

Logan raises a fist, his claws pop out, surprising the Pryde family immensely. Kitty recovers first, she reaches out to the table, but instead of touching it we see her hand go through it, ooh, intangibility, that's cool.

"So, you're all mutants? Is the school safe, can Kitty use her powers freely, without fear of persecution? And can you teach her to control her powers?" Her mom asks.

"Control? She looked pretty in control now." I say as I lean back on the couch.

"Only when I'm awake. I've been having these nightmares recently, and whenever I do, I use my powers, and I'm scared that I'll wake up half in my bed or through the floor. After all, no two objects can exist in the same space." Kitty tells us.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound fun at all," I look at the clock, it's 7:45. "Not going to school today?"

She looks at the clock and lets out a noise of surprise before phasing through the couch and running up the stairs. Jean and I look at each other, guess she is. Scott looks at her parents. "So, would you like to continue this conversation, or should we wait for Kitty to come back from school, Mr. and Mrs. Pryde?"

They look at each other before nodding. "Maybe one of you could drop her off at school, we'd like to continue this." Kitty's dad says.

"I've got it, c'mon Nolan, let's go drop off your girlfriend." Jean mocks.

I growl at her as we go to wait at the limo, after a few minutes Kitty comes outside, ready to go to school. She stops once she sees the limo. "You can't drop me off in that, do you know what everyone else would say? May as well paint a target on my back."

"Wow, your school's just like my old one? God, I love stereotypical school life, it adds vigor to my life." I say wistfully.

"You sure? I mean, I'm a telepath, I can just make people see a smaller car instead of a limo, that way I can drop you off there." Jean offers.

"I don't know about that one Jean; someone could run into the limo if they can't see its full length." I counter.

Kitty's arms are directed towards me as if she were showing me off. "See, Nol's got a point." Kitty's face immediately blushes intensely after she says that.

Jean looks at me with a knowing smirk on her face. "Hm, 'Nol'?"

I cover my burning face with my hands. "Jean, let's go, we've wasted enough time talking."

She lightly laughs. "Whatever you say, Nol."

I grumble as I open the door for Kitty, entering the car after she does. I see her looking around in awe, but what really surprised me was when she activated a holographic screen, for a moment she looked at it in awe, after that she begins to mess with it, going through screens almost as well as I do. "You're good with computers."

She lets out a quick laugh as she looks away. "I don't know how, honestly, I just am. How, uh, how've you been these last couple of years, Nol?"

"Nothing much until recently…Kit?" She smiles and nods at that, guess I finally remembered her childhood nickname. "Up until recently my life's been pretty average. Of course, that all changed when I met the Professor, Jean, and Scott, shit really hit the fan then."

"How so?" She asks. Kitty flips through page after page on the hologram, eventually coming across the recruitment list. "Who are these guys?"

"Well, on my literal first day at the school my grandfather, Mister Sinister, he calls himself, attacked the school, he then kidnapped me as well. So yeah, a pretty eventful first day if I say so myself," I slide next to her and point at Kurt Wagner's hologram as an example. "And these are the other people we're gonna recruit. As you can see there's a list, with you in the second spot."

"Why's that?" She turns her head to me before quickly turning away, for a second I wondered why, then I realized that I was a little too close to her. I scoot back a little, trying to force down my own blush in the process.

I cough awkwardly before continuing. "The school's in New York, so we decided to go for the people closest, that's why we're travelling westward. California's our next destination, actually."

She looks over Jubilation Lee's file. "So, she's the next one then? Will I get to come with?"

I shrug and lean back in my seat. "If you want, I mean, you don't have to, our first two recruits and Bobby are at a hotel right now, probably watching a movie or whatever. Bobby's Iceman, by the way, one of the first five X-Men."

"Are Jean and Scott Marvel Girl and Cyclops then?" She asks excitedly.

"Yeah, we've got more team members staying at the school, Hank, Warren, John, Ororo, and Forge," Looking out the window I see a whole bunch of kids around our age with backpacks walking together, Jean parks the limo and they all slow down to stare at it. "Look's like we're here. Let me open the door for you."

I get up and ignore any protests she makes, I wait outside for a moment before she sheepishly exits the limo, trying to hide her face from her classmates. "Thanks, Nol. But you didn't have to do that." She muttered.

I just laugh. "I just wanna help an old friend. Besides, what kind of guy would I be if I didn't open the door for a pretty lady?"

Her blush intensifies. "See you later."

"See you later." I repeat.

Once she begins to walk towards her school, trying to avoid a group of students trying to talk to her, I get into the passenger seat, ignoring a smirking Jean. "Sooo, 'pretty lady', huh? Who knew you were such a romantic, Nol?" Jean smugly announces. "Oh, I can't wait to tell the others, I wonder what Warren would say?"

I just glare at her. She laughs and ruffles my hair. "Come on Nolan, I'm just messing with you. Mostly."

I continue my glare. Jean pulls out from her parking spot, I smirk slightly and lean back in my seat, looking forward, but when I do, I notice something from the corner of my eye. Looking out the window I notice a guy glaring at me, he has shoulder length dark brown hair, intense brown eyes and is currently wearing a brown sleeveless vest over a black t-shirt, with black fingerless gloves on. I glare back at him; he turns and marches towards the school. I don't like the look of that.

"What, a love rival?" Jean asks semi-seriously.

I look at her incredulously before sighing in slight annoyance, she bumps me with her elbow as she stops at a red light. May as well play her game. "I don't know, but I really don't like the look of him."

"Yeah, I agree with you on that one. Wanna stay and keep an eye out? I can go back and tell the others." Jean offers. I nod, she continues and parks at a nearby restaurant, I look at her and give her a nod of thanks. Well, time to get to the bottom of this mystery, gang.

* * *

After a few minutes Jean eventually opens the door to find Scott finishing up his conversation with the Pryde's, Logan currently on his phone, staring at it blankly. Jean takes a seat next to Scott and turns to them. "So, we dropped off Kitty at school, but Nolan noticed something interesting, so he decided to stay nearby."

Theresa's eyes widen as she leans forward, looking at Jean with fear in her eyes. "Why? Is my Kitty in danger?"

"Maybe. Nolan noticed someone glaring at him, which happened after he opened the door for Kitty, he's keeping an eye out just in case he tries anything funny." Jean explains.

Their looks of fear quickly turn into looks of anger and annoyance. Carmen sighs deeply as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Shoulder-length dark brown hair, black sleeveless vest with a black t-shirt?"

"Uh, yeah, how'd you know?" Jean asks.

"His name is Lance Alvers, he's Kitty's 'ex-boyfriend'. Thankfully that relationship never lasted long." Theresa informs.

"I never liked that boy; he was far too rowdy and had no respect for anyone other than himself. He would do nothing but take my Kitty down with him if their relationship continued," Carmen states strongly. "I'll have to thank Nolan for staying with her when they get back."

Jean lets out a mischievous giggle at that, Scott looks at her with a worried look, he never liked where things went whenever he heard that giggle. Jean just looks at him and winks before beginning a conversation with Carmen and Theresa.

* * *

Dear sweet mother of God, normal school is mad fucking boring. Like, was Midtown this bad? Stereotypical jocks and mean girls and nerds, emo people, and the geeks. Thank every god in existence that I got out of there. Wait, a moment of silence for Gwen, Peter, and Harry, for being stuck in that hellhole. Okay, moment done. It's been a couple of hours since I stayed, using my telepathy to stay invisible to everyone but Kitty, thankfully she's smart, once she realized that no one else saw me she decided to continue on with her day as if I weren't there.

Right now, it's their lunch hour, Kitty and I head over to the nearby McDonalds to get some food. And hey, I can use this as a chance to talk to her about Mr. Edgy, who's currently following us right now, not so subtly. "I've got a question, Kit: Who's the brown-haired guy that's been trying to talk to you the entire day?"

She sighs as she enters the building. "His name's Lance Alvers, he's my ex."

After making our order we sit at a nearby table and continue our conversation. "Wait, you have an ex?" I successfully mask any hints of jealously in my voice.

She shrugs and puts her hand in a so-so motion. "Kinda, we didn't last long, thank God for that. We talked for a month or so, we were only official for a little over a week, I broke up with him about a month ago, actually. Why?"

"When we dropped you off earlier, I noticed him glaring at me after I opened the door for you, maybe he's jealous?" I ask.

She sighs deeply again before muttering something probably not entirely nice, before she could continue our number gets called, I get our food and we start to eat. "He thinks that because I was his first girlfriend, I should be with him forever, or some shit like that. God, it's so annoying. And considering the fact that you were being a gentleman with me he's now jealous, he's probably gonna attack you, just saying."

"Yay. Alright, I'll keep an eye out for him. Subject change time! How's Kenny? I mean, I kind of remember saying goodbye to him but I don't remember why I did." I lean forward, taking a sip of my drink as I do.

"Yeah, his dad's company had a better job offer for him here, so the family moved over here. He's out of state right now, he was on vacation over the summer, but a huge storm came out of nowhere and caused all flights to stop for a while now." Kitty says.

A storm? How big would that have to be if it caused all flights in the area to stop? I'll have to check with the Professor and Forge next time I call them. Looking at my phone I see the time. "When does your lunch end?"

"12:15, why?" I show her my phone, it's 12:08. "Come on, let's go."

I use my telepathic cloak and follow her to school, keeping an eye out for Lance, but failing to find him, I don't like that. Alright, time to keep an eye out for a jealous ex, this should be easy.

* * *

_'Who the hell is that asshole? And why is Kitty so close with him, she should be with me!' _Lance thinks. Lance glares at him before blinking, once his eyes open, he realizes that the guy disappeared. _'What the hell?'_

Lance blinks again, this time when he opens his eyes, he finds himself in an alleyway. Looking around frantically Lance notices a blur running around the alleyway, gritting his teeth he holds out his hands and focuses, the ground begins to shake, the blur loses its balance and lands in a heap on top of some trash bags.

Standing over the blur Lance sees a guy in a primarily blue outfit with silver boots, a belt, shoulders and a lightning bolt that goes from his left shoulder down to the right side of his belt. Strangely enough this guy has silver hair, but he still looks young, probably a year or two older than Lance, actually.

Lance grabs him by the collar of his suit and hefts the guy up. "Who the hell are you, why the hell did you bring me here, and why shouldn't I take you out now?"

"QuicksilverwantedtotalkIhaveanofferforyou." He says quickly. He then smirks and points behind Lance. Turning around Lance sees a tall mature woman sauntering out of another part of the alley, she's wearing a blue formfitting shirt that extends to a skirt that goes down her front and back, with black tight pants and white boots. Her skin is blue, she has blood red hair and pure yellow eyes, a skull is also seen at the top of her forehead.

"His name's Nolan Belmont, he's a mutant, just like you, a part of the X-Men, actually. In case you were wondering who he was. Mystique, my friend's name is Quicksilver, he likes to talk fast sometimes, it's annoying." Mystique says.

Quicksilver frees himself from Lance's surprisingly strong grasp and runs to Mystique's side. "We're from the Brotherhood, and we're here to recruit you, what do you say?"

Lance mulls over their offer. "Where's Magneto, isn't he your leader?"

Quicksilver and Mystique share a look. "We're in the middle of a recruitment run, we've got something big planned, so my Father needs to be up there to properly get things done." Quicksilver says.

Lance continues to think over their offer. Honestly, doesn't sound half bad, after everything that's happened to him in the past, all the people he's met, there is no reason why humans should have the Earth, none at all comes to Lance's mind. "Alright, I'll join, under one condition: Let me take out that asshole, Nolan."

"Heh, deal," Mystique shakes hands with Lance as she begins to shapeshift into the form of a brunette schoolteacher. "Alright, here's the plan."

* * *

Finally, last class of this extremely long day. We enter the classroom, and god fucking dammit, they have a substitute teacher, and I know exactly who it is.

The principal and the substitute are standing in front of the class, once the student's stop talking the principal begins to talk. "Class, for today you'll have a substitute, Dr. Brown had a last-minute emergency to deal with, thankfully he had a replacement on hand, please welcome Ms. Darkholme, please, behave for her." The principal exits the classroom, Mystique stands in the center of the class and glares at the students.

"Alright, where were you with Dr. Brown?" She looks over the class before her eyes land on Lance. "Mr. Alvers?"

He has a shit-eating grin, I don't like where this is going. "We were doing a group project, well, starting it, actually, we have yet to get partners."

_"Nol, who is she? I could feel your anger when you saw her."_ Kitty tells me, worry clear in her…voice, let's say voice.

_"Her name's Mystique, she's one of the Brotherhood. She can shapeshift, chances are Dr. Brown doesn't have 'a last-minute emergency', it's more likely he's dead," _I reply. _"And if she's here it can only mean two things: she's going to recruit Lance, and Quicksilver's nearby. Quicksilver's a speedster, even if we capture her, he'll come and rescue her before we could even blink."_

"Alright, I'll decide the partners," She stops once the class begins to protest, her glare quickly stops the students. Kitty and I look at each other, subtly, we both know where this is going. "First pairing: Katherine Pryde and Lance Alvers."

_"Saw that one coming a mile away." _Kitty thinks spitefully. I place my hand on her shoulder in a comforting sign, she lightly smiles in response. The class then breaks off into their duos, Lance takes his seat next to Kitty and scoots uncomfortably close to her.

"Hey there, Kitty, miss me?" He leans into her personal space.

She gives him a blank stare as she scoots back. "Like a tumor, Lance. Look, I'll just do all the work (like always), you just get out of my way, once this is done you never talk to me ever again, got it?" Kitty looks at the paper given to them and begins the assignment.

"Come on, Kitty, whatever happened to the girl who was crazy for me?" Lance picks up to beakers with some unknown chemicals and messes with them for a moment, Kitty quickly grabs them from him.

"She grew up. Lance, if you seriously don't leave me alone, I'll tell the authorities, after all, my Dad's been pushing me to do that for a while now." She says strongly.

"Really, well, you do know doing that would bring attention to you, and to your _friend,_ Nolan." Lance says. Kitty and I look at him with wide eyes, how does-Mystique, dammit.

The fire alarm suddenly goes off, the students quickly hop out of their seats and heads towards the exit, before Kitty could get up, Lance roughly grabs her arm. Eh, no one'll question it, I drop my cloak and roughly grab Lance's shoulder in a vice grip, he turns to me with wide eyes that quickly narrow.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Mystique charge towards me, dropping her Raven Darkholme form as she does. I swap to my Iceman powers and quickly ice up, making my skin rough, once she punches me, she leaps back, clutching her fist in pain.

The ground below me begins to shake, causing me to lose my balance. I turn to see Lance's eyes are entirely white, his face in deep concentration, the earthquake's coming from him. The walls of the classroom begin to breakdown, chemicals begin to spill, creating a real fire. I lose my balance entirely and fall on my ass, Lance gets up and walks towards me as if the earthquake wasn't even happening, once he reaches me the shaking stops, his face breaks out into a smirk before he activates his powers again.

The earth below me splits open, causing me to fall into a deep abyss. I can vaguely hear Kitty shouting out my name as I fall, looking around I realize that the ground's closing up, he intends to trap me down here, like that's gonna happen. I activate my Untouchable powers once the earth closes, creating a small bubble for me, I extend my powers and create and even bigger bubble.

Alright, let's do this. Using Lance's powers, I go into a deep concentrated state, I feel the earth in a more intimate manner, suddenly I feel like I can move it however I see fit, so I do. The ground opens up, I quickly swap to my Storm powers and create a powerful gust of wind, launching myself up through the small cavern, on my way up I notice Lance curiously looking down the hole. Idiot. Using my speed, I headbutt him as I rise up, knocking him out. One down, one to go.

Turning around I find Kitty actually fighting back against Mystique, and she's doing surprisingly well. Go Kitty. I wrap my arms in little arcs of lightning and get a nice hit in on Mystique's shoulder, rendering her right arm useless. She reaches into her belt and pulls out a little pellet, she drops it onto the ground, so I leap onto Kitty and swap to my Thunderbird powers, which was a total mistake, by the way, the pellet was a flashbang.

After an agonizing few moments my senses finally clear up. Once my eyes begin to see again I see two amazing brown eyes staring back into mine, after a moment I realize my position and quickly clamber off of Kitty, helping her up once I'm up, trying to hide the blush on my face the entire time. "Uh, t-thanks." Kitty stutters out.

I look away and kick a stray rock down the hole I created. "No, uh, no problem," We look at each other, blush, and quickly look away. "You okay?'

"Yeah. Thanks for the help. Wait, where are they?" Kitty asks.

Turning around I find that their both gone, using my enhanced sense of smell I quickly find a scent that's been the cause of a massive headache of mine for a while now: Quicksilver was here. I sigh deeply before swapping to my new powers, to close the hole I created. "By now? Who knows where," Looking around I notice the destroyed classroom, and by extension, section of the school. "I think we should get you home."

Kitty's phone goes off in her pocket, she pulls it out and answers the call. "Dad! Hey, how are ya? Me? Oh, I'm fine, Nolan's here with me, so I never was in trouble anyway. Yeah, no, that…that was us. Uh huh, yeah, okay. We can wait for Jean at the school, yeah. Okay, love you, bye," She turns off her phone and turns to me. "We should get going."

"Lead the way." I reply.

After a few minutes of getting a quick checkup from the paramedics who arrived shortly after Lance's little earthquake Kitty and I find ourselves waiting at the curb of the school, an awkward silence hanging over the both of us. "So-" We both stop and look at each other before laughing. "You first." I tell Kitty.

"Right. So, is that normal for you X-Men? Fights with other mutants that have history with you?" She asks.

"More so than you think. From what the rumors say Magneto and the Professor used to be best friends, and this other guy, a big ass dude who's supposedly unstoppable is the Professor's step-brother, have no idea who he is though," I tell her, taking note of the surprised look on her face at these revelations. "Hell, after my first day my grandfather kidnapped me, and he's one of the most dangerous mutants out there."

"Right, Mister Sinister. Hard to believe there's any lady out there who'd have a kid with him, he's scary looking in my opinion." She shivers dramatically.

"You've got a point. Sadly, I've taken some attributes from him, such as my amazing jawline and intensely attractive eyes. But I mean, other than the skin, eyes, and diamond he looks like your average guy, that's the look he went for when he met my Grandma." I tell her.

"Right, speaking of your grandma she's from London, isn't she? Wait, going off that note, what happened to your accent? I remember you having a slight English accent when we were younger." She asks.

"Damn, how much do you remember?" I look down the street and see the limo in the distance. "As I grew up we started visiting Grandma less and less due to us having less time, because of that my accent started to naturally fade out, but if I want to I could speak in it again, it's just not my natural voice anymore."

The limo rolls up and stops in front of us, walking forward I open the door open for Kitty, her face breaks out into another blush as she attempts to avoid the stares of the other students. "You enjoy embarrassing me, don't you?"

"It brings me joy, Miss Pryde." I hop into the limo and sit next to her. Looking towards the driver seat I see Scott and Jean looking back, knowing smirks on their faces, I glare at them in turn and slowly shake my head.

"So, how was school, kiddo?" Scott asks with an over the top stereotypical American dad voice. I still have no idea how he did it. He begins the drive back to the Pryde household.

Kitty sighs deeply before beginning the story. "My ex-"

_"Someone's jealous." _Jean mocks,

_"Shut up." _I counter.

"-Teamed up with some chick named Mystique (Who was disguised as a substitute teacher, by the way) And attacked Nolan and me. Lance's a mutant, just so you know, he can create and manipulate earthquakes." Kitty bluntly explained.

"Mystique was here?" Jean asks.

"Yeah, I knocked out Lance and joined Kitty in fighting Mystique, before we could do any real damage, she tossed down a flashbang, once the effects cleared, they were gone, Quicksilver most likely." I answer.

Scott growls at that name. I totally understand, after all, Quicksilver's been a pain in both of our asses. The car eventually rolls up to Kitty's house, outside we find her family, Logan, Bobby, Anna Marie, and Remy waiting, as soon as we exit the car her parents rush over and wrap Kitty in a tight hug. Huh, I should talk to Mom and Dad soon. After a few minutes the three of them and Scott talk about Kitty's place at the school, considering what happened to her current one. She and her parents agreed almost immediately.

Bobby and I go inside and create some ice clones, under the guidance of Kitty we gather the items that we need to, well, the one's she'd let them gather, there were some things she was vehemently against them grabbing. After another hour, most of which coming from the dinner offered by Mrs. Pryde we were all waiting outside near the limo, watching Kitty say goodbye to her parents for now.

"Remember to call whenever you can, and to keep up with your schoolwork, just because we aren't there doesn't mean you should slack off." Her mother begins to fuss over her.

"I know Mom, I won't let anything get in the way of my schoolwork. And I'll make sure to call every week, at the least, but I'll call whenever I can." Kitty says.

"And watch out for boys up there, who knows what would be on their minds regarding a beautiful girl like you." Her mother continued.

Kitty looks down in embarrassment. "Mom, come on, I'm pretty sure Lance ruined boys for me."

Her dad's eyebrow quirks up as he has a smirk on his face. "Really now? Guess I should tell Nolan then."

Logan lets out a bark of laughter, everyone else looks at him in confusion, as soon as she puts two and two together Jean not so subtly elbows me repeatedly. Great, now Bobby, Anna Marie, and Remy know, thanks Jean.

_"No problem." _She smugly replies.

Looking up I notice Kitty walking towards us, her suitcase trailing behind us, once she reaches the limo she turns around and waves a tearful goodbye to her parents. Logan, in a surprising act of kindness, gently takes her suitcase and puts it in the back.

We all enter the car and begin to talk, trying to cheer Kitty up from her funk, after all, this is probably the first time she's going to be this far from her parents for this amount of time. "So, your named after a cat? Weird, but Remy's seen weirder," He notices he look of confusion, so he offers a hand. "The name's Remy LeBeau, also go by Gambit."

"Mah name's Anna Marie, or Rogue if ya want." Anna Marie introduces herself.

"And the name's Bobby, you can call me Iceman, it'd be a lot cooler if you did." We all groan at Bobby's pun; he just has an unapologetic smirk on his face.

"You two already have your codenames? Well, I guess I should make one." Kitty begins to take a thinker pose.

"You don have to if you don't want to." Jean tries to say.

"Ah ha! Ariel! No, that's too fairy like, wouldn't strike fear into anyone's heart. Sprite? Agh, no, I'd have to wear a green and yellow costume, then we'd probably get sued by Coca-Cola." For the literal rest of the ride we hear nothing but Kitty going through codename after codename, once we think she has one she quickly shoots it down.

"Wow, she really is takin' this seriously, ain't she?" Anna Marie says in awe.

The jet finally takes off, after a few more minutes of listening to Kitty constantly come up with codenames only for her to shoot down. After a while she jumps up in her seat, grabbing all of our attentions. "I've got it!"

"Finally." Logan grumbles.

"Ignoring that. My codename will be: Shadowcat," She poses dramatically on her seat before looking at us with excitement clear in her entire form. "Well, what do you guys think?"

Everyone else gives her an affirmative, Logan just grumbles what sounds like a yes. She then turns to me and adopts a slightly nervous form. "What do you think, Nol?"

I notice Anna Marie and Remy's suggestive looks towards me, Remy raising and lowering his eyebrows at a rapid pace. Ignoring them I turn to Kitty with a smile on my face. "Welcome to the X-Men, Shadowcat."

Her smile's almost bright enough to dwarf the sun, she hops into her seat and immediately starts a conversation with Jean, Remy, Bobby, and Anna Marie. I smile at the sight of it, looks like everyone's becoming fast friends, nice. I lean back and close my eyes. Three down, six more to go. Next stop, California.

* * *

Feeling light smacks against his face Lance slowly opens his eyes, once he does he sees a smirking Quicksilver standing over him, smacking him lightly at a super fast pace. Growling in anger Lance smacks Quicksilver's hand away and slowly gets up, looking around Lance notices that he's in an infirmary, and everything in the infirmary is metal.

"Come on, Father wants to talk to you." Quicksilver gets up and exits the infirmary.

Lance's eyes widen in surprise. Magneto wants to talk to him? Why? Deciding that staying in the infirmary won't get him any answers Lance gets up, ignoring the massive headache he now has he marches forward, following Quicksilver, who still walks at a fast pace. After going through some doors he stops in a small room, in the center is a circle glowing red, Quicksilver steps to the side and motions for Lance to enter the circle.

Once Lance enters the circle a red circular light rises up, reaching towards the ceiling. The rest of the room becomes a throne room, looking around Lance sees a collection of people: Mastermind, a girl wearing scarlet red, two massive guys, one incredibly fat and the other a wall of pure muscle, a giant dome-like helmet on his head. Another younger girl is seen wearing green, her hair is also green and a boy with blond hair and a black suit standing next to her. In the throne Lance sees the man of the hour: Magneto.

"You must be Lance Alvers, my name is Erik Lehnsherr, you may call me Magneto," He gets up from his throne and floats down, stopping in front of the hologram. "Mystique and my son, Quicksilver, have told me of your abilities, they will be useful in my mission. What say you, Lance? Will you join the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy? Will you take help your brothers and sisters in taking the earth for mutantkind, its rightful rulers?"

Lance immediately nods. "Of course. What do you want me to do?"

Magneto smiles at Lance's eagerness. "You will travel the world with my son and Mystique, gather more like minded mutants, we'll need them if our plan is to work," He turns around and heads to his throne, but before he goes up the stairs he raises his head and turns around. "Ah, yes, what will your name be, not the one chosen for you by the humans, but one chosen by you?"

Lance thinks for a moment before one perfect word comes to mind. "Avalanche."

"Welcome to the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy, Avalanche, your powers will be instrumental in my plans." Magneto finishes. The transmission ends.

Lance turns around to see a smirking Quicksilver. "So, what now?"

* * *

**Boom. Chapter done. This was definitely a chapter I've been wanting to write for a while now, after all, we finally get to meet the love interest! Honestly, Shadowcat is one of my favorite characters in general, so getting to write a story where she's pretty much the second protagonist is great. Oh, fun fact: The **_**X-Men: Evolution **_**episode where Kitty was introduce actually aired on the day I was born, Nov. 11, 2000. Pretty awesome if I say so myself.**

**If it isn't too much to ask could you guys please leave a review for this story? I have a good amount of followers and favorites, and this story gets good traffic, but I only have two reviews as of now. Remember, by leaving constructive reviews you help better the story, so help me increase the story's quality so that I can help you enjoy your time spent reading this. **

**That's all from me, thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it. Please, share this story with your friends and family, leave constructive criticism, and remember to stay awesome! See you next week.**


	17. The Fourth of July in September

**Alright, after this it's time to get out of America, and into the rest of the world! Just gonna throw this out there now, I've never travelled to places like Louisiana, Illinois, and California, hell, I've never left North America to begin with, so yeah, bear with me with the out of states part of this story. **

**So, this here chapter's influence by the amazingly perfect 90's animated series. So yeah, let's get going, shall we?**

* * *

**The Fourth of July in September**

I really am glad that the _Blackbird's_ extremely fast, but it also sucks, cause we can't exactly enjoy the places we land at, and considering the fact that California's next is a real travesty. I mean, I know I came here before with Hank, and once when I was younger, but still, I wanna go to the beach again, is that too much to ask?

The jet lands, once we exit, we find yet another limo waiting for us, except this one's bigger, looks like a hummer limo, nice. Kitty turns to Scott as she pulls her luggage with her. "Where'll we find Jubilation?"

"She lives with foster parents over in Beverly Hills, due to her age I want you three girls to come with me and Bobby, if you're all up for it, of course." Scott says. The girls nod at this. As the car drives towards the hotel we see a small fleet of heavy vehicles barrel down the street, on their side are the letters 'MCU'.

"Goddammit, the Mutant Containment Unit's here. What now, Slim?" Logan asks.

"Jean, can you get in contact with-"

"Already on it, Scott." Jean interrupts.

_"Jean, what message do you have now, how goes the recruiting?" _The Professor asks.

_"Wait, who's dis?" _Remy asks, confusion clear in his emotions. Kitty and Anna Marie have the same feelings washing off of them as well.

_"I am Professor Charles Xavier, the one who runs the school. It's a pleasure to meet you, but I feel as though this isn't a check-up call." _The Professor answers.

_"You're right about that, sir, we have a problem: Some MCU trucks just rolled by, most likely heading towards Jubilation's home, can you do anything about that?" _Scott asks.

_"Regretfully I cannot, I have an important meeting coming up and my full attention will be needed. Let me see who it is they are looking for at least. Ah, it's just as I feared, they are after Jubilation Lee." _The Professor replies.

_"Then we gotta get to her place quick. If they capture her then fighting them to rescue her might make this harder than it should be." _Kitty said.

_While you are correct Miss Pryde there is a change to your plan that is necessary: She is not at home, but rather at the nearby mall. Oh no. X-Men, listen, you must hurry, Sentinels are on their way. Damn, I must go, my meeting has arrived, good luck X-Men, you can do this." _We feel the Professor's presence leave.

Looking ahead we see two of the three trucks separate themselves from the group, considering the fact that the sole truck was headed towards her home we deduced that the other two were headed towards the mall. In the sky we then hear the unmistakable noise of Sentinel thrusters, looking up we see two Sentinels, one following the two to the mall, and the other heading towards Jubilation's home.

"Dammit, if only we had two cars. Okay, Logan, Bobby, you two head towards her home, Jean, Nolan, and I will head towards the mall." Scott ordered.

Remy coughs loudly as he glares at Scott. "What about de rest of us?"

Scott shakes his head. "You're not X-Men, I can't ask you to fight, at least, not yet."

"Das bullshit. Chere and Remy did pretty damn good against you an' Bobby back in Louisiana." Remy argues.

Bobby looks away and grumbles something along the lines of "You caught us by surprise, that's all."

Scott, on the other hand, thinks it over before looking at Remy, Anna Marie, and Kitty. "Okay, if you want to fight, you can, but you don't have to if you don't want to, we won't judge you."

The three of them share a look before looking at Scott and nod. "Okay, Remy, you'll join us, your explosives would help greatly. Kitty, Anna Marie, you'll be with Logan and Bobby, help hold off any MCU troops until we get there, got it?"

"One quick thing," Anna Marie says, with a finger raised. "Ah realized that 'Anna Marie' is kind of a mouthful for y'all, so Ah wouldn't mind if y'all called me by Rogue."

"Oh, thank God." Bobby and I say at the same time.

"Alright. We all have our assignments, lets split X-Men, Logan, you're in charge of Gold Team." Scott says as the limo begins to park.

Logan nods as he and Gold Team exit the limo, running towards Jubilation's home. "Alright, Slim, what's de plan?" Remy asks as he shuffles a stack of cards that come from who knows where.

"You, Jean, and I will attack the MCU and Sentinels, gain their attention, and while all of this is happening Nolan will use the chaos to try and find Jubilation." Scott says. Scott then throws a holographic screen towards me, stopping it I see a picture of Jubilation, well, now I'll know what she looks like.

"Wait, what about the plan? I mean, it's pretty FUBAR now, but why not have Jean look for her while the three of us blow shit up?" I ask.

Jean turns to give me an intense stare. "Have you ever thought about the fact that I might want to blow shit up, Nolan? I mean, if you look at it, you've been at the center of all these battles, are you hogging the spotlight now?"

I gulp as I lean back in my seat. "No. No, it's fine, you wanna blow shit up? Then blow shit up!" I whimper. I feel Remy place his hands on my shoulders in a comforting manner.

"We're here, let's get ready people." Scott says as he jumps out of the car, followed closely by Jean, a feral smirk on her face.

"Damn, she's scary." Remy so eloquently states.

I do nothing but nod as Remy exits the limo, I wait for the fireworks to start. After a minute of waiting explosions and gunfire can be heard outside, activating my Mystique powers I shapeshift into one of the MCU troops and sneak my way in.

_"Nolan, which one are you?" _Remy asks as he throws cards around at large groupings of troops.

I highlight my presence in the mental link, that way they won't attack me by accident. Successfully sneaking past the carnage, I make it inside, here I find chaos, people running around, MCU troops trying to corral them, and fireworks going off indoors. Wait, fireworks? Who the hell has fireworks in September? I mean, January isn't for another couple of months, isn't it a little early to have fireworks now?

A group of four MCU troops make their way towards the fireworks display, one of them notices me and approaches me. "Where are your weapons?"

Quick, need an excuse. "They were destroyed by the mutants outside, when they hit with their first attack, caught me entirely by surprise." Man, I'm good.

"Damn muties. Here, take my pistol. Now come on! The one we were called for is at the fireworks, I think those are its powers." He turns away and heads towards the fireworks display. Well, now they're not fireworks, but instead where I'll find Jubilation.

Following the group of four I decide to keep my cover, it'd be easier that way. We eventually make it to the location of the fireworks; here I find a group of six troops trying miserably to enter the store. At least Jubilation knows how to use the location to her advantage. Staying in the back I look at the other six and come up with a plan. Go for the guy in front of me, then work my way forward, simple, but effective.

I use his own pistol and aim it at his legs, thank you John for teaching me where to shoot for non-vital injuries. I fire the gun, two of the others turn around once he yells, before they could retaliate, I shoot them in their legs, causing them to cry out in pain also. "You!" One of the troops shouts as she aims her gun at me.

I dodge out of the way and tap into my Loki powers-that's right, I've got the powers of a god, although I have no idea what I really can and can't do though, should check that out when I can-and fire an ice blast, freezing her in place. Concentrating deeply, I create an illusion of two large bears, they rise onto their hind legs and roar at one of the remaining troops, he drops his gun and runs away.

Two left, looking over the trash can I see that the fireworks have stopped, the other two troops on the ground knocked out. A head cautiously peeks out of the store, after looking around the rest of Jubilation Lee exits the store. She's short and young, probably thirteen, maybe even twelve, she's wearing a long yellow jacket with a pink shirt under and blue skinny jeans, her hair is short and wild, and she has pink shades over her eyes. She locks eyes with me and has her arms out, bright energy crackling between her fingers.

"Whoa, did you take these guys out by yourself?" She asked, looking around in awe.

I blink, that's…that's not what I expected her first question to be, whatever, I'll roll with it. "Yeah, name's Nolan Belmont, I'm with the X-Men, and we're here to recruit you." I offer my hand out for her to shake.

To my surprise she basically leaps forward and grabs my hand in a vice grip, shaking it wildly. "Oh my God! You're one of the X-Men!? That's so cool! Which one are you? Wolverine? Nah, you aren't hairy enough, which means you aren't Beast either. Cyclops? No, you don't have the cool visor. Thunderbird? Wait, you don't have enough muscles-"

"Hey!"

She gasps. "You're that new guy, Copy, was it?"

I give her a flat look as I finally pull my hand out of her grasp. "Mimic. The name's Mimic. Look, you're a mutant, we go to a mutant school, we came here to recruit you, but we gotta go now, there's a Sentinel outside."

Something crashes into the roof of the mall. A distance away we see a heavily damage Sentinel land in the food court. "Inside. The Sentinel's inside," I turn around as I grab a hold of her arm. "C'mon, we gotta go."

She begrudgingly follows my lead. "Why can't you fight it? I mean, you're an X-Man, besides, it's heavily damaged, you could take it out, no worries. Could we take it out together?"

"Nope, no, not at all, that ain't happening," I immediately shoot down her idea as I shake my head no. "You aren't trained to take on a Sentinel, and besides, they have a surprising number of tricks up their sleeves. Arms. Whatever."

"MUTANTS DETECTED. ENABLING CAPTURE PROTOCOLS." The Sentinel raises its arm and fires a net towards us. Grabbing Jubilation, I throw the both of us out of the way, we quickly scramble up and continue to run away.

"You can copy powers, right? Why not copy Marvel Girl's powers and brain blast that thing?" Jubilation says.

"What? No, Jubilation-"

"Jubilee. I go by Jubilee." She interrupts.

"Jubilee, telepathy only works on living things with brains, Sentinels aren't living," We dodge another net. "And they sure as hell don't have brains."

The world around us explodes. Shaking my head to regain my bearings I find the Sentinel looming over me, after it grabs Jubilee it reaches down for me and picks me up, before I could react it places me in some sort of bubble, taking away all of my energy almost immediately. Well shit.

* * *

Outside things begin to heat up for the rest of Blue Team, what with the arrival of more MCU troops and another Sentinel. While this is all happening one of the MCU troops turns his head to the side and places his fingers to his ear, after a moment he does a hand signal. "What's dat mean?" Remy asks as he throws another card.

"No idea. Jean, how's Nolan?" Scott asks, dodging a blast from one of the Sentinels, firing back in response.

The troops enter their vehicles and begin to drive away, the Sentinels staying behind. Confused, Remy looks around. "What's goin' on? Why are dey leavin'?"

Jean's face pales. "They got her." She immediately ducks into cover and reaches out telepathically. _"NOLAN! Where are you?"_ She turns back to Scott, a frantic look on her face. "He's not answering."

"What's happenin'?" Remy demands, destroying one of the Sentinels in the process.

The heavily damaged Sentinel rockets out of the mall. "Remy! Stay focused on this Sentinel! We'll deal with that one later." Scott orders.

With the help of Jean and Remy the three mutants use a focused attack on eventually destroy the last remaining Sentinel. Remy walks up to Scott and puts his hand on Scott's shoulder. "What's up wit' dem leavin'? Where are Nolan and Jubilation?"

"The Sentinel that escaped captured the both of them, they left to protect it as they go to their facility," Scott says. He notices Remy's wide eyes immediately. "Don't worry, we'll rescue them. First, we have to rendezvous with Gold Team."

"Let's just rescue 'em now! We did pretty good against dat group and two of 'em." Remy protested.

"We won't make it in time. Besides, we'd have a better chance of success with Gold Team alongside us. Trust me, Remy, this is the right way to do this." Jean counters.

Remy's face goes through a multitude of changes, anger, rejection, then understanding. He looks at Jean and Scott and nods. The three quickly head towards the car, hoping to reach Gold Team in time.

* * *

"Okay, they only sent one truck to the house, meaning we've gotta deal with ten of 'em. Frosty, you're with me, Kitty, Rogue, stay in support, only intervene when you absolutely need to," He pauses to give the two an extremely pointed look. "Understand?"

The two girls nod. Bobby ices up and Logan pops out his claws, getting up, the group stealthily make their way towards the group, stopping a few feet behind them. Once Gold Team nears the house, they notice Jubilation's parents outside, talking to one of the MCU troops. Logan turns towards Kitty. "Half-Pint, new plan. While Bobby and I are drawin' their attention you sneak by, get her parents outta there so we can really take 'em out."

"What about me?" Rogue asks.

"Stay in support, I don't want to put you in any unnecessary harm." Logan says. He gets up and roars, drawing the attention of everyone outside of their homes in the neighborhood.

Bobby stands up and ices up. "Well, let's get this party started." He jumps into the air and creates and ice slide. Bobby uses his superior movement to circle around the troops, freezing two before they could register his being there.

Kitty turns to Rogue and winks. "See ya later," She runs along the homes in the neighborhood, using the chaos as cover. One trooper notices her, however. Using her powers, she phases through the trooper, confused the trooper turns around, they become an ice statue shortly after. Reaching the porch, Kitty stops in between the two. "Hi! I'm here to save you, don't freak out please." The three of them phase through the front of the house.

Logan dodges the butt of a rifle from one of the troopers, in retaliation he slices at the chest of the two troops in front of him, making sure to not go too deep into their skin. Five down, five to go. Turning around Logan finds another two frozen solid. Seven down, three to go. Looking around Logan notices only one, the other two are missing.

The remining visible trooper raises her gun, arms shaking the entire time. A giant hand of ice grabs a hold of her, a few seconds later the hand becomes a small iceberg, the trooper in the center.

A bullet flies into Logan's shoulder, turning around he finds another trooper. Before anyone could do anything, the trooper drops his gun and slowly drops to the ground. Once he falls the two X-Men see a triumphant Rogue standing over him, she reaches down and grabs his rifle, expertly handling it.

"He was the only one, seemed like the safest time to move in, right?" Rogue rhetorically asks.

"He wasn't the last, there was a tenth, remember? We have no idea where he is, well, Logan does, where is he Logan?" Bobby asks. Gunfire goes off from within Jubilation's house. "Found him."

The three hurry into the house, breaking down the door as they do. Inside they stop and stare in shock as they see Kitty standing over the unconscious body of the tenth trooper. "I took some martial arts; I think I'm pretty good."

"What is this!?" Jubilation's dad roars. "Why did you bring these men to my home, why did you break my door, and who the hell are you!?"

"This was a raid done by the Mutant Containment Unit. We didn't bring them here, your brat did. We broke the door cause of her," Logan points at the MCU trooper. "And we are the X-Men. Got a problem with that?" Logan crosses his arms as he seemingly stands over Jubilation's father, even though Logan was shorter than him.

"My daughter? What does Jubilee have to do with these people, you're the mutants." He continues.

"Yeah, she's one too." Bobby says.

"W-what? No, my Jubilee isn't a mutant, she's a nice, normal girl." Her mother denied.

Logan growls, the two back up in fear. "You got a problem with mutants?"

Before this could continue the sound of a car quickly approaching can be heard from outside, sniffing the air Logan recognizes the scents of Jean, Scott, and Remy. Logan's eyes narrow. "Blue Team's back, but Nolan and the kid aren't with 'em."

"What?" Kitty says.

She runs outside, followed closely by Bobby and the rest of Gold Team, Jubilee's parents following after a minute. Scott walks lowers the window. "We have a little problem. One of the Sentinels got Nolan and Jubilation."

"WHAT!" Jubilee's dad screams. "Why are you here? Save my daughter," He runs his hand through his hair and begins to pace. "The only reason she was kidnapped was because of that Nolan, isn't it?"

Angry, Kitty marches up to Jubilee's father and stabs a finger into his chest, pushing him back due to his surprise. "It isn't Nolan's fault she got kidnapped! Your daughter's a mutant! Why can't you get that through your thick head?"

Logan grabs Kitty by her shoulders, dragging her towards the limo. "C'mon Half-Pint, let's go save your boyfriend."

Kitty blushes intensely as she phases out of Logan's grip. "He isn't my boyfriend. I just wanna save a close friend, that's all."

"Whatever you say Kitty Cat, we believe you," Remy says smugly as he opens the door for Gold Team. He then turns to Scott, leaning forward in excitement. "Alright, what's de plan?"

Scott activates some holographic screens in front of everyone. "There's Sentinel Services facility a few miles away from here, it doubles as a mutant containment center as well. Thanks to Forge and Nolan's efforts from a couple of months ago we have a backdoor into their servers, but don't count on it, they could have countermeasures."

"How're the team setups going to look like?" Bobby asks.

Some of the holographic screens change to gold. "Logan, Kitty, and Rogue will be Gold Team, you'll rescue Nolan and Jubilation. The rest of us will attack the facility and draw as much attention as we can."

"I wanna be on the rescue team." Remy protests.

"No. Look at the team compositions: Gold has our stealthier members because they're the rescue team. Blue is filled with destructive powers, and your abilities are pretty damn destructive. You're at your best with us, trust me." Scott counters.

Remy folds his arms and leans back, an angry yet accepting look on his face. "Fine. Remy does see the point in your plan."

"Alright, guys, let's go save our friends." Scott says. The limo begins the drive, the X-Men preparing themselves for a difficult battle.

* * *

I hate being restricted by giant ass handcuffs, it's annoying. Opening my eyes, I find myself in a clear box, surrounded by MCU troops and members of Sentinel Services, looking left I see Jubilee looking around frantically. Eventually she and I make eye contact, I nod reassuringly, she calms down but is still frantic.

One of the MCU troops slams his gun into the front of my box. "Look who's up. How was the beauty sleep, mutie, you need it." He has a large grin on his face, showing off his chipped teeth.

"Holy shit, dude, what'd you do to piss off the tooth fairy? Your teeth remind me of a bag filled with shards of glass." I counter.

His grin immediately drops, doesn't help that the others all laugh at my remark. He pulls out a device from his pocket and presses a button, the handcuffs tighten to a painful degree and the power dampening collar lets out a massive shock. Screaming in pain I can barely hear Jubilee's cries, but I could definitely hear the roaring laughter from the MCU troops and the Sentinel Services members.

Once the shock dies down I breath heavily to regain my composure before glaring at him. "Wow, you're so skilled, shocking a defenseless kid, your mother must be so proud of you." I breath.

He lets out a roar of rage as he presses another button, the front of my containment box opens. He marches in and punches me across the face. Yep, that's a broken nose alright, gonna have to swap to some regenerating powers after this. He grabs me by the collar and yanks me forward. "Don't you dare talk about my mother! She was a saint, and you muties took her from this world!"

What? Great, this guy lost his mom to some mutants, that can only mean one thing: He's batshit insane. Lovely.

"Alright, that's enough, Henderson, we don't want to break the property as soon as it gets in, do we?"

Asshole turns around and exits the box. In the distance I see a tall, lanky man approach us, two bodyguards at his side. On his name tag it reads Dr. Hernandez. "Hello, my name is Dr. Hernandez, no need to tell me your names. You are Jubilation Lee, from her in California, adopted at a young age, you don't know what happened to your parents, do you?"  
Jubilee jerks forward, only stopped by the chains holding her to her seat. "What do you mean? What did you jerks do to my parents?" She demanded.

Dr. Hernandez just laughs. "We did nothing, they did. This all happened because your father called us. I must thank him the next time I see him."

Jubilee's face paled. "W-what? What do you mean h-he called you?"

"Well, it wasn't about you, per say, more along the lines that he believed one of your friends was a mutant, we sent out a team to the mall after he called, he was worried you were falling in with the wrong crowd. Imagine our surprise when we found out that your friend wasn't the mutant, you were." Dr. Hernandez smiles at the look of shock and denial that crosses over Jubilee's face.

He then slowly turns around and walks towards me, a shit eating grin on his face as he stops in front of my containment box. "And you. I know exactly who you are," One of his guard's steps forward and hands him a tablet. Dr. Hernandez turns it around, showing footage of mine and Forge's attack on the Sentinel Services facility months ago. "I did some digging, thankfully the internet helped, that's a first, isn't it? You're one of the X-Men, Mimic, to be exact, but your birthname is Nolan Belmont. Son of Cayde and Julie Belmont-"

"YOU LEAVE MY PARENTS OUT OF THIS!"

All of the guards and troops back away in fear and raise their weapons at my outburst, Dr. Hernandez's smirk just grows as he leans forward. "Well, touched a nerve, didn't I? Where was I? Oh, right. Born in London, England on the date of November 11, 2000, grandson to Helena Belmont, formerly Helena Essex when she was married to your grandfather, Nathaniel Essex. Your family moved to New York City in December of 2005, since then you've lived there. Did I miss anything."

I just glare at him. Damn, really wish I had my Cyclops powers now, I really want to hit him with a full powered blast. He just backs off to the side and makes a sweeping motion with his hand, our containment boxes resume movement. A giant door then opens, showing a multitude of containment boxes, stopping nearby a giant crane machine our boxes are placed next to each other, the handcuffs release and drop onto the floor.

I take deep calming breaths as I rub my sore arms. After counting to ten I turn to Jubilee, who's still in shock from the news given to her by Dr. Hernandez. "He wouldn't do that, would he? And why didn't Mom stop him? There has to be some explanation. There must be." I hear her mumble. Jubilee curls into the fetal position as she continues to rant excuses for her father.

"Jubilee, Jubilee," Dammit, she isn't listening. "JUBILATION!" She jumps up and slowly turns towards me. "Calm down. Don't worry, the others will come for us, and once they do, we'll get out of here, no problem. Alright?" I reassure her.

"How c-can you be so sure?" She asks.

"Because I know them, if I think they'll come rescue us, they'll come rescue us, as simple as that. We just have to hold out until they do, thankfully it won't be long." I say. I sit down on what passes as a bed in my cell and begin to think things over. I look back up and see Jubilee curled up on her bead, her jacket wrapped tightly around her.

I hear footsteps approaching from the right side of my cell, getting up I look to see the asshole guard from earlier, he stops in front of my cell and smirks as he leers at me. "Ain't so brave now, are ya?"

I just ignore him. For another few minutes he taunts me, but honestly, it's just sounds like 'blah blah blah'. I hear the door to my cell open, looking up I see him marching towards me, glaring intensely. He grabs me by the hair and punches my already broken nose, causing an extreme spike of pain. He throws me down and kicks me, taunting me as he does.

Before the next kick could connect, he stops and lets out a gasp. Looking up I see a hand emerge from his chest. I knew they'd come and save us. Kitty then trips him, causing his head to hit the corner of my bed. Holy shit, who knew she was so ferocious? Her look of pure rage quickly shifts into immense concern once she looks at me. "Oh my God, Nolan, are you okay? What did that asshole do to you?"

She offers her hand to help me up, before I fall over and hit the ground due to the immense pain coming from my nose, she places her hand on my chest to support me. "Thanks Kitty, appreciate it." I somehow manage to get out.

Looking to my left I see Logan supporting Jubilee, helping her out of her cell. Surprisingly enough, he's gentle, not pushing to hard, and he's asking genuine questions. The three of them notice my condition and walk up to me, Rogue carefully puts a band-aid over the bridge of my nose.

"Wait, how'd you guys get in here? What about the guards? How'd you get the med kit?" I ask, raising my head up to allow Logan access to my collar. He cuts it off, I immediately feel a rush of energy.

"Absorbed the skills of a guard, took his stuff." Rogue says. She quickly turns around and fires two accurate shots into the hands of two guards, they drop to the ground in pain.

"I think he gave you some intense head injury, Nol," Kitty says, holding my head. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two." I say confidently.

The group shares a concerned look. "I'm holding up one." Kitty says.

"Oh," Getting up, I look over the railing and notice a riot going on. "Oh. How'd I not notice the riot?" In the distance I hear the unmistakable sound of one of Gambit's cards, the high-pitched whine that happens before the explosion.

"You were hit in the head a couple of times, they sounded pretty hard too." Jubilee tells me.

"C'mon, kid, use my powers and heal, we've gotta meet up with Blue Team and get the hell outta here." Logan says, turning around to throw one of the guards over the railing as he attempts to sneak up on Logan.

I activate my Wolverine powers; my nose quickly heals. Taking off the band-aid, feeling at the bridge of my nose I feel a little scar already healing over. "Nice, at least this scar has a better story than your lip scar." Kitty says cheekily, smiling brightly as she does.

I feel my face flush immensely, I'm honestly surprised I didn't catch on fire. "Wait, you know how he got his scar?" Rogue asks.

"We can talk about Nolan's scars later, we gotta get outta here. Now." Logan orders. We all look at each other and nod.

After running through groups of guards we near a hole in the west side of the building, here we see Sentinels, MCU troops, and Sentinel Services guards struggling against the mutants they once held captive. In the distance I see Blue Team fighting three Sentinels, I immediately recognize the one that brought Jubilee and I here.

Before we could do anything Jubilee darts forward, surprising us all with her speed and agility, seeing as she avoided everyone who tried to detain her. "Jubilee! Wait up!" Quickly getting over my shock I follow after her, the other follow to.

Jubilee stops at the foot of the Sentinel. "Hey you! Jerkface! I've got something to show you!" The Sentinel turns around and does nothing but aim its hand at her, ready to fire. Jubilee's hands glow brighter than I've ever seen. She throws her hands up, her fireworks collide with the Sentinel's palm just as it fired, due to the collision of the energy attacks an explosion erupts, sending Jubilee flying towards us and destroying half the Sentinel's already heavily damaged body.

"Damn, dat was one hell of an explosion, if Remy says so himself." Remy says in awe.

"Agreed, but we aren't done yet!" Scott lifts his glasses and fires into the chest of one of the Sentinel's, sending it back a few feet.

In the distance I hear a car starting up, turning to it I see Dr. Hernandez and his two guards entering the vehicle. I see nothing but red, both figuratively and literally, as I (unconsciously) swap to my Sinister powers, my eyes and the diamond on my forehead glow brightly before firing a powerful beam at the car, the ensuing explosion sending everyone around it all over the place.

"I'll be back," I growl. I vaguely hear Scott call out for me, I ignore it and march towards Dr. Hernandez, any who attempts to stop me gets flung to the side by my telekinetic shield. I stop and stand over Dr. Hernandez, glaring down at him as he looks up at me, fear evident in his eyes. "Hello there."

"G-g-g-general Kenobi. Heh, see, I watched it too," He stutters. I see his hand stealthily reaching back. Using my telekinesis, I swing his arm back into its previous place, ignoring the sickening pop that comes form my actions, and his screams that follow. I manipulate the matter of the ground around him to rise up and surround him, similar to what I did to the rhino back at the Oscorp facility. "N-now I am aware I may have come off as cocky, but trust me, I really meant you no harm. Please have mercy."

I tighten the grip of the ground on him, he lets out a loud yelp of pain. "You lost that chance as soon as you brought up my parents."

A strong punch connects with the back of my head, sending me into the wreckage that was the car I destroyed. What the hell? Looking up I see one of the guards tear up my natural prison for Dr. Hernandez. My eyes begin to glow, I then fire a blast at the two of them, the guard grabs Dr. Hernandez and dodges my attack, he then runs into the distance, completely ignoring everything else happening. Again, what the hell?

Looking around I notice everything begin to die down, the mutants slowly leaving the area, an untold amount of destroyed Sentinel parts all over the place. Well, guess that's done. Walking towards the group I notice the looks on their faces, fear on Remy's Rogue's and Jubilee's. Concern on the X-Men's faces, and a mix of both on Kitty's.

"What? Am I missing an arm? I did have one hell of an adrenaline rush just now, so I wouldn't really notice if I did, would I?" I say.

"No. Nolan, you're using your Sinister powers." Scott tells me.

Quickly I look at my pure white hands, reaching up to my forehead I feel the different texture of the diamond. I shift to my Thunderbird powers as soon as I realize this.

"What do you mean 'Sinister powers'?" Rogue asks.

"My, uh, my grandfather is Mister Sinister, you know, that pale white guy who wears red and black, he's extremely dangerous." I tell them.

"Wait, your mom's dad is a super villain?" Kitty asks incredulously.

"Yeah, he is," Jean answers for me. She brings me in for a side hug and rubs my shoulder to help comfort me. "C'mon, let's get back to the limo, we've gotta go to Jubilee's house and ask her parents if she can come to the school."

"No way!" Jubilee argues. We all stop walking and turn around, shocked at her response, well, everyone but me. "This all happened because my Dad (who isn't my biological Dad, by the way) called these guys. I'm not going back home. No. Matter. What." She stops and folds her arms, standing as tall as she can to look defiant.

"Fine, you can do that, we won't stop you," Scott says. Jubilee smiles and begins to speak, but Scott interrupts her. "But you have to tell them you're coming with us, and it has to be in person. We really don't want to deal with any legal problems in the future. Once was enough."

Jean, Bobby, and Logan all shiver at some unpleasant memory.

Jubilee pouts as she deflates. "Fiiine. Let's just get this over with." She marches forward.

"Limo's this way." Bobby says, pointing in the other direction.

"I knew that!" Jubilee shouts.

The group heads towards the limo, Bobby, Scott and Remy in the front, followed by Logan, Rogue, Kitty, and Jubilee behind him, Kitty would look back every now and again. Jean and I in the back, her arm still around me in a comforting manner. "Are you sure your okay, Nolan? We know you don't like using those powers." She says.

I take a shaky breath as I nod. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, really. Let's just ignore it for now, please?" I look up and give Jean puppy dog eyes. She sighs and looks away, trying to avoid my greatest superpower. It doesn't work.

"Fine, but we're going to talk about it later, no avoiding it." She says, laughing lightly at my little dance of celebration.

Finally sitting in the comforting seat of the limo I sink into it, letting out a sigh as I do. "Let's get the hell outta here please, I really wanna go to Japan soon."

"Woah, Japan? We're going to Japan?" Jubilee says.

Not gonna lie, I'm really impressed with how quickly she can regain her energy, even after being told her adoptive father betrayed her. That's a definite strength in my book.

Kitty laughs as she gently pulls Jubilee down by her shoulders. "Yeah, we're travelling the world to get more people to join the X-Men, or join the student body, like us. You're actually the last person in America that we're recruiting."

"Where're we going? Where're we going?" Jubilee asks excitedly. Rogue activates a hologram and places it in front of her, Jubilee 'ooo's in awe at it and immediately starts swiping, looking over the names.

"Hold up, don't you dare rest yet, Nolan. Ah remember Kitty talkin' about your scar. There's somethin' about your lip scar you didn't have time to say there, well, you have time now, how'd you get your lip scar?" Rogue says, a victorious smirk on her face.

Everyone stops what they're doing and look at me. "Yeah Nolan, how'd you get it?" Kitty says smugly.

"Y'know something, even I don't know how he got the scar, and we've been roommates for almost a year now." Bobby says.

I feel my face flush intensely again as I look down. "You don't need to know."

"C'mon Nolan, don't teams work better together when dey share secrets?" Remy pushed, not so softly punching me in the chest.

"Look, maybe I'll tell you guys about the scar later, right now, you don't need to know. Jean, you better not read my mind or Kitty's to get the story," I say as I look at her angrily. She starts laughing. Oh, oh no. "What the hell!?"

She slowly stops laughing, actually wiping a tear away as she begins to speak. "It's not my fault, it's on the forefront of both of your minds, you may as well be shouting the story to me. Holy crap, Nolan, I thought you were the smart one."

"Hey!" Bobby exclaims.

"You gonna tell us?" Jubilee asks excitedly.

Jean lightly pats her on the head. "Sorry, but no. If Nolan doesn't want me to share it then I won't."

They all look at Kitty expectantly. "Same." She simply says.

They all mutter in annoyance, Remy, Bobby, and Scott promise to do whatever they can to find out the story behind my lip scar. I sigh deeply and sink into my seat, falling into a slumber.

* * *

Waking up I hear distant screaming, sounds like an argument. Sitting up I stretch, noticing Kitty sitting across from me now, watching a video on a holographic screen. She looks up once she notices I'm awake and smiles. "Hey Nol, how are you? Is your nose okay, and why hasn't your scar healed over?"

I instinctively feel at the scar on the bridge of my nose. "Yeah, I'm fine, nose is too. Whenever I swap to my Wolverine powers after getting injured the healing usually isn't complete, a few months ago a saw cut into my arm, it's still a little stiff sometimes," I notice the look of alarm on her face and quickly intervene. "I'm fine, the pain's all gone, soon my arm will be as good as new, don't worry."

She still looks at me in concern before looking away, rubbing her arm in worry. "Is this common? Destroying schools, getting kidnapped, getting your arm nearly sawed off for God's sake?" She looks up as I get up and sit next to her. "Is this really the life you want to live, Nol?"

"Yeah" I say without hesitation. "Before this I didn't really know what I wanted to do, I mean, back at Midtown I just wanted to be under the radar cause I felt like no one understood me, with the X-Men it's different, I can be me."

I can see a multitude of thoughts go on in her head, she then looks into my eyes, determination easy to see. "Well, guess I have to stay on the team. To keep you out of trouble, at least." She says with a cheeky smile.

"Ha. Ha. Very funny," I pause. We then realize how close we've gotten and backed away quickly. Blush, go down now. Dammit, you are my body, listen to me! Blush, begone! The argument from the distance increases in intensity. "Hey, what's going on with the argument outside?"

"You can hear them arguing?" Kitty asks surprised.

"Yeah, Thunderbird, the big Native American guy on the team who wears black and red, has enhanced senses as a part of his powers. If I focus my senses even further, I could hear what they're talking about specifically, just don't feel like it right now." I explain.

"Right. Well, Jubilee went to tell her parents she's coming with us, an argument broke out, so now Jean and Scott are staying with her as support." Kitty tells me.

"Where're the others?" I ask, exiting the limo.

Kitty follows out, at the end of the neighborhood we see Logan smoking a cigar, he nods at us once he notices us, we wave back. "Bobby, Rogue, and Remy went to a local McDonald's about five minutes ago, said he was gonna get you your 'crave food'. Whatever that means."

"Oh, Bobby, you are a true bro." I say.

Logan walks up to us. "They're comin' outside."

Sure enough Jubilee, Scott, and Jean march outside, using the hole that used to be the front of her home. Jubilee's parents following close behind. "Jubilee! Stop right now and listen to your father!" Her mom orders.

"No. I won't listen to you, I-I mean, you called the Mutant Containment Unit on me for crying out loud! No father does that to their kid." Jubilee screams.

"I didn't know you were the mutant, why must you blame me for that mistake?" Her dad argues.

"Okay, so you didn't call them on me, you still called them on one of my friends! I mean, who the hell does that?" Jubilee continues her rant.

"Language." Her dad warns.

"No. Fuck you. Come on guys, let's go." Jubilee turns around and pretty much throws her luggage into the car. Looking at her parents we see them stay in place, their mouths open in shock.

"Let's…let's go." Scott softly says, slowly walking towards the limo.

"Damn, didn't think the kid had it in her, guess I was wrong." Logan says, slight awe in his voice.

We all enter the car and drive away, an awkward silence in the air. Jubilee then tries to activate a holographic screen, Kitty scoots over and helps her activate a holographic screen. Nodding in thanks Jubilee presses a few selections from the main menu, rock music blares to life in our section of the limo.

"Shut that off!" Logan roars.

"Heh, sorry." Jubilee lowers the volume considerably. Feeling my ears, I bring my fingers before my eyes, yep, that's blood. My ears are bleeding.

We stop at the nearby McDonald's outside we see the rest of the group outside, holding massive bags filled with food. "Yo, yo, yo-wait, is that _Pearl Jam_? Who's playing this?" Bobby says, handing us our food.

Jubilee raises her hand as she takes her food. She and Bobby high-five. We then begin conversing about a whole bunch of stuff, shows, video games, music, and all that other good stuff. I can hear Logan mutter under his breath. "This is gonna be a long trip."

Hell yeah it is, may as well have some fun while we're at it. Goodbye America, hello Japan.

* * *

**A few hours ago**

The guard ran away from the battle, Dr. Hernandez under his arm. "You're not one of my people. Who are you?" Dr. Hernandez asks.

The guard stops, creating a small ditch as he dragged his feet through the ground. The guard throws Dr. Hernandez to the ground. "Stop talking."

Dr. Hernandez slowly gets up, dusting the dirt off of his jacket. "Your voice changed as well. Again, who are you?"

The guard punches Dr. Hernandez in the stomach, winding him. The doctor folds over and throws up, the power behind the fist was far more than he was expecting, that's for sure. Behind him he hears a noise, turning around Dr. Hernandez sees a jet land. Once the jet finishes its landing sequence the ramp lowers, and the person at the top causes two feelings to become prominent within Dr. Hernandez: Surprise and fear.

"Hello, I need your assistance, 'no' won't be taken for an answer."

The guard punches Dr. Hernandez in the back of the head, knocking him out.

* * *

**Yeah, so the last chapter wasn't my biggest chapter, this was! It's entirely possible that chapters will get bigger in the future, if they do, I'll probably cap at about 10,000 words per chapter. By the way, the Mutant Containment Unit and Sentinel Services are two different companies, MCU is more based off of manpower while Sentinel Services is about tech, although they're different companies they frequently work together.**

**Thanks for reading, please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next week.**


	18. Land of the Rising Sunfire

**And we're out of the states and off to the rest of the world. Not gonna lie, of all the people joining in this arc Sunfire's the one I know the least about, hell, the only time I've ever read a comic with him in it was during the Uncanny Avengers run. I'll do my research on him as I write this chapter but please bear with me, he might be out of character.**

**That's enough from me, on to the next chapter.**

* * *

**Land of the Rising Sunfire**

"So, Japan," Bobby began. The two of us shared a look before giant grins broke over our faces. "HELL YEAH JAPAN!" Bobby and I shout.

Logan groans as he lowers his cowboy hat over his face and sinks deeper into his seat. "It's just another country, ain't no reason to be so damn excited."

"Oh, Logan, you don't understand how important this is for Nolan and me! Japan is a land filled with a wealth of culture. Tis time for us to experience the wonders of anime, firsthand." Bobby explained.

Everyone just stares at the two of us, Bobby standing, one leg on his chair with his hands on his waist, I'm currently bouncing around in my seat. They all just turn back to doing what they were doing before. "They don't understand, trust me, I've tried explaining to Jean and Scott." I tell Bobby.

Bobby turns to the two and gives them an intense glare. They just shrug in response. "I mean, some of what Nolan's shown me are pretty interesting." Scott says.

"Does _Pokemon_ count?" Jean asks.

Logan groans loudly in annoyance just before I sigh deeply. "W-W-What!? NO! THAT IS NOT AN ANIME! (Well, technically it is) BUT NO!" Bobby begins to rant.

"Dude just let it go, please. Let's just enjoy our time towards and at Japan, yeah?" I say.

Bobby deflates. "Fine. Wait, you've watched some of what Nolan recommended? What the hell man!? I've known you for four years now and you haven't once watched any of my recommendations!" Bobby straightens up and marches towards Scott.

The _Blackbird_ jerks to the left, all of us in our seats grab a hold of our armrests while Bobby losses his footing and flies into Remy. "Hey dere, think you can cool my drink?" Remy offers his soda to Bobby. Bobby touches the can. "Appreciate it."

"No problem." Bobby grumbles. He slowly gets up and marches towards his seat, he then drops into it and folds his arms, sinking into his seat.

Kitty sticks her head over my shoulder. "He's pretty intense about this, isn't he?"

"Yup. You should've seen it, he pretty much bullied Armando (One of the kids at the school) into watching anime," I explain, she looks at me with wide eyes. "To be fair, he's enjoying it, starting another series that I can't remember right now."

"You got any recommendations?" She asks.

A large smile comes over my face. "Oh, Kitty, I am going to show you a whole new world."

"Get a room, you two!" Jubilee calls out.

Kitty snaps back into her seat and looks to her left, glaring at a smirking Jubilee who sits next to her, I look between mine and Bobby's seats and glare at her as well. "I'm just saying. You two are so hot for each other, pretty sure Bobby can barely cool things down." She continues.

"She ain't wrong, you two are almost less subtle than Jean and Scott, bravo for that." Bobby adds. I punch him in the shoulder, Kitty's hand comes from between our headrests, she smacks him in the side of the head.

"If ya like Japan so much why don't you take her on a date? We don't need everyone to get Yoshida." Logan says.

"Dammit Logan, not you too." I whine, sinking into my seat hoping it'll absorb me.

"S-Scott?" Kitty asks, a slight stutter in her voice. "How long until we reach Japan?"

"We'll get there by tomorrow. Ample time for the two of you to plan your little sightseeing date if you want." Scott says. He looks back and has a cheeky grin on his face.

"Okay, anyone else?" I say. Looking around I see everyone has cheeky grins on their faces. Hell, even Logan has one if you look carefully enough. "Great, now then, time to change the subject. Please."

"What about, bro?" Bobby asks.

"What about the rest of de team? Like de guy wit' wings or…Beast, was it?" Remy says.

"Yeah, we can talk about that," Scott begins. "Jean, Bobby, and I are three of the original five. Warren and Hank are the other two, Warren goes by Angel. Logan, Ororo, Forge, and John joined the team in what we call the Second Wave."

"Storm and Thunderbird are Ororo and John's codenames, right?" Rogue asks.

"Yeah. Nolan's still technically the newest member of the team." Jean replies.

"I go by Mimic. I've been on the team for about a year now, in November, to be exact." I explain.

"We aren't X-Men?" Jubilee says as she stands over Bobby's seat.

"It's gotta be official. Besides, you don't have to join if you don't want to, you can become a student entirely if you want to and join the team later, John-Thunderbird's brother-is doing that right now." Bobby says.

"I'm gonna join as soon as I can!" Jubilee exclaims.

"Same. Chere?" Remy turns to Rogue.

She nods. "Ah'm down. Kitty?"

"Someone's gotta make sure Nolan doesn't make any stupid decisions again, he's got enough scars." Kitty says. Jean barks out a quick laugh at that, I hate that she knows about that, and that Kitty remembers.

"Kitty, how the hell do you even remember that? We were like four when that happened." I say.

"Eidetic memory." She replies.

I blink. The phrase is familiar but where did I hear it from? Oh, right, she told me that after she learned she had one, talked about it for a whole week. Wait, if I remember something from that long ago does that mean I have eidetic memory? That's fucking awesome.

"What's that?" Jubilee asks.

"The ability to remember anything after seeing it only once," Jean answers for Kitty. "I'm impressed Kitty, not a lot of people have that skill."

"Thanks Jean. Do you have it? And the Professor also?" She asks.

Jean nods. "Yeah, all telepaths have eidetic memory. Made all the tests I've taken in the past super easy, also helps that we're born with it."

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah, it tends to be the first ability telepathic mutants have. Hell, if you're more likely to have an X-gene and have eidetic memory, chances are you're more likely to be a telepath. Kitty's obviously the exception." Jean explains.

"Niiice." I say. Kitty and I fist bump.

"Wait, so what about Nolan? He can be a telepath when he wants to, what does that do to his memory?" Rogue asks.

"The Professor and I have a theory about that, and Kitty helped solve it just now actually." Jean says.

"How'd I help?" Kitty wonders.

"When Nolan had met you the shared memories the two of you have together came rushing back to him. Thanks to his telepathy he now has an eidetic memory, but he needs a trigger that relates to the memory for it to come back." Jean explains.

"That would make sense," I add. "When I heard Kitty's name there was a nagging sensation in the back of my head, once Kitty and I started to talk my memories did slowly start to come back."

Jean turns her seat around, looking out the window. She puts her hands behind her head as her seat leans back. "Theory solved. Nice one team, next we'll solve the mystery of where Logan gets all of his cigars."

Logan grunts. "Good luck, Red."

"What time is it?" Bobby pipes up. "Oh, it's nearly midnight. How many hours left, Slim?"

Scott looks at the console. "Another six, Bobby."

I yawn as my seat leans back, Bobby and Jubilee doing the same. "Wake us when you need us." Jubilee says. Bobby and I bring our fists out to her, we have a triple fist bump.

After about half an hour I finally fall asleep. Goodbye North America, hello Japan.

* * *

I feel cards hit against my face. Groaning I open my eyes to find a smirking Rogue and Remy, the latter throwing the cards at me. "Get up, we're a couple minutes out from Japan." Rogue says.

I get up and stretch, noticing that Jubilee, Kitty, Bobby, and Jean are still asleep. I turn to my right and kick Bobby's leg; he jumps up and looks around frantically before glaring at me. Jean lets out a yawn as she wakes up, Jubilee can be heard grumbling something like 'five more minutes', and Kitty's rubbing her eyes as she gets up.

"How much longer?" Kitty asks.

"Another ten minutes. Some of the Professor's old friends will meet us at the airport and offer us a place to stay. Helps that Shiro's one of them." Scott answers.

"Really? Awesome. Hey, maybe we can get the recruitment done right at the airport?" Bobby says.

We all look at him for a minute, he squirms uncomfortably due to the intensity of our combined gazes. "Bobby, we had to fight Remy and Rogue when they were being manipulated in Louisiana. Nolan had to deal with a localized earthquake back in Illinois, and we had Sentinels in Cali. Knowing our luck there'll be a fight or two to be had." Jean deadpans.

Bobby deflates. "Can't you let a guy dream?"

"No." We all say.

"Assholes." Bobby mutters.

"Sit down, I'm gonna begin landing." Scott says.

A few minutes later we walk down the ramp, at the end we find three people waiting for us, a bald old guy who's pretty short, he's just a little shorter than me, actually. An attractive woman to his left, she's even shorter than he is, and she looks to be in her early to mid-twenties. And to his right is a giant of a man, extremely muscular with a katana on his waist.

"Ah, you must be Xavier's students! Welcome to Japan, my name is Shingen Harada. This is my son, Keniuchio Harada, and my lovely daughter, Mariko Yashida." The bald man begins.

"Nice to meet you, Harada, sir. My name is Scott Summers, these are Jean Grey, Bobby Drake, Logan, Nolan Belmont, Remy LeBeau, Anna Marie-you can call her Rogue-Kitty Pryde, and Jubilation Lee, she goes by Jubilee." Scott bows in respect, most of us follow suit.

"Why don't you bow?" Keniuchio says. He marches forward and towers over Logan.

"I've got my reasons, bub," He turns to Shingen. "Where's Shiro? We thought he'd be here with you."

"Yes, that. Please, come with us to our home, I will explain everything there." Shingen says. From his car comes four bodyguards, they all come towards us and take our luggage to the car. Scott turns to look at us, after a silent conversation, which had no telepathy involved, we all shrugged and followed Shingen and his family.

"Can I hold your katana?" Jubilee suddenly asks Keniuchio.

Everyone stops and stares at her in shock. Shortly after Shingen barks out a laugh as his daughter hides her own laugh behind her hand. Keniuchio just stares at Jubilee, a look of surprise flashes over his face once he realizes that Jubilee was serious, and that his blank look won't do anything to deter her.

"No. But I will let you use one of my katanas at home, this one is…special." He says.

Jubilee grabs Remy by the shoulders and violently shakes him. Looking to my left I see Logan brooding in his seat, a deeper frown than usual on his face. "You good man?" I ask.

Logan leans towards me. "I don't know why, but I've got a bad feelin' about Shingen and his son, somethin' about them rubs me the wrong way." He whispers.

"And Mariko?" I continue.

Logan stays quiet for a moment. "There's somethin' about her that I can't quite place. I feel like she reminds me of someone, but I don't know who. Keep this between me and you, got it Shifty?"

"Count on it." I say.

Logan nods as he leans back into his seat, but by doing so he attracts the attention of Shingen. "Logan, is it? You don't talk much do you, why is that?"

"Just don't feel like it." Logan says.

Keniuchio-who I'm now going to call Ken-leans forward and growls, placing his hand on the hilt of his katana. "Disrespect my father anymore and you will find your head separate from your body."

"Try me." Logan counters, the skin between his knuckles bulging slightly.

"Please, don't fight." Mariko says.

Due to the softness of her voice and the fact that this is the first time she's spoken we all look at her and calm down, the tension dropping to acceptable levels.

The car stops. We exit the vehicle and find ourselves in front of a large property, a mansion showing the perfect fusion of traditional Japanese architecture mixed with modern technology. Shingen, his children, and his guards walk to the front of the mansion and turn around, Shingen spreads his arms out and has a large smile on his face. "Welcome to the Yashida Mansion!"

Bobby makes a sound of appreciation as he looks around. "Yup, this is dope."

"Remy seconds that." Remy adds.

Shingen chuckles as most of us look around in awe at his home. "I made sure to keep the traditional Japanese architecture and feel, while also making the home modern. It helps that my company is cutting edge in technology."

"Right, the Yashida Zaibatsu is yours, isn't it? Wonder why I didn't make the connection sooner." I muse. I look to my left and see a koi fish pond.

"It is. And soon it will go to my daughter, Mariko." Shingen says.

I notice Ken's face shift at that. Logan, Scott, Remy, and I all look at each other subtly, looks like they noticed his disagreement with that as well. A maid exits from the front door. "Harada-Sama, the food is prepared in the dining room."

"Thank you, you are dismissed," Shingen replies. The maid bows before walking back inside. "Come, you must be hungry from all of your travelling, yes?"

Bobby's stomach decides to growl at that exact moment. "Heh, yeah. Eating only snacks and fast-food doesn't really help the stomach."

My stomach growls as well. "What're we eating?" Jean smacks the back of my head. "I mean, what are we eating, sir?"

"Come, inside, I find it better to see the food than to describe it." Shingen and his entourage turn around to enter the house, we follow them.

Logan grabs Scott and I by our shoulders and holds us back. "Slim, the kid and I talked about this earlier, but you gotta know too: I got a bad feelin' about Shingen, and his son, Keniuchio, soemthin' about them rubs me the wrong way."

Scott nods. "Jean and Bobby have the same feeling as well; I think Remy does too. Let's play along, after all, they're our only lead to Shiro as of now."

Logan pats our shoulders before moving forward to join the group, Scott and I follow behind. In the dining room we find a long table stretching from one end of the room to the other, on the table we see an assortment of food, ranging from sushi, to yakitori, to rice, tea and sake are also on the table.

"Please, make yourselves at home." Shingen announces.

The table has chairs, so we all sit in them. At the head sits Shingen, with Mariko to his right and Ken to his left. Logan, Bobby, Rogue, and Jubilee sitting next to Ken, with the rest of us on the other side, next to Mariko. A group of butlers enter the dining room, one for each of us, they ask us for what we would like, and eventually, we all have our own plates of a select choice of foods. Remy's, Bobby's, and Jubilee's plates have a little bit of everything on them.

As we begin to eat Jean turns to Shingen. "So, you wanted to talk about Shiro when we were at your home, is now a good time?"

Shingen wipes his mouth and places his fists on the table, quiet for a moment before looking Jean in the eyes. "My brother, Tomo Yoshida, has taken Shiro, where, we do not know. But we believe that he plans to use Shiro to attack targets in the United States."

"Woah. Any idea why he would do this to his own son?" Jubilee asks.

"Oh, no, Uncle Tomo isn't Shiro's father, Saburo is." Mariko corrects.

"Got it, so, why would he use his own nephew as a weapon?" Jubilee asks.

Shingen sighs. "Our mother was in Hiroshima during the bombing, she survived for years, but in the end the radiation poisoning got to her. Many believed that my brothers and I wouldn't live past our adolescence, yet, here we are."

"The radiation didn't do anything to you?" Kitty asks.

For a split second I notice Shingen's face twitch, so does Ken's fist and Mariko's mouth. They're definitely hiding something, Scott, Logan, Remy, and I share a subtle look. "My brother, Saburo's two children are mutants, well, we believe his daughter will become one."

"Believe?" Rogue questions.

"When Shiro was younger he showed a resistance to heat, his sister shows similar traits, even though they have different mothers." Shingen explains.

"What happened to Shiro's mother?" I ask.

"When she was visiting the United States, she was killed by Americans. We believe Tomo is using this to manipulate Shiro to help him." Ken answers.

"And because Shiro and his sister have similar powers but different mothers it's more than likely that the X-gene comes from your uncle then." Jean summarizes. Ken nods.

"Now we've gotta solve the mystery of where Tomo took Shiro, stop them, and convince Shiro that this is the wrong path to take. Sounds like fun." Jubilee says.

"Yes, well, there's another problem that we've recently learned about." Shingen says sheepishly.

"What?" Logan growls.

"We believe Tomo has hired an assassin to teach my nephew how to effectively kill." Shingen answers.

We all look at each other with wide eyes. This doesn't sound good. "Who's the assassin?" Rogue asks.

"A woman by the name of Yuriko Oyama." Shingen answers.

Logan chokes on his sake and crushes the cup, he rises up in his chair and moves so fast he practically teleports towards Shingen, he lifts him up by his shirt. The guards in the room quickly move towards Logan and place their swords all over his body, Ken gets up and puts the blade against Logan's neck.

"Say that one more time, I could've sworn you said 'Yuriko Oyama'." Logan lowly says.

"I did." Shingen simply says.

Logan drops Shingen into his seat, the guards and Ken slowly back away. Logan heads towards his seat, picks up his hat-which fell off during his lunge towards Shingen-and exits the dining room. Things stay quiet as we all look at the door, Ken glares at the door before getting up. "I am going to train. I won't fight him, even if he attacked Father in our own home." He says before his sister could object.

"I'm going with!" We all look at Jubilee as she jumps out of her seat, her plate half-eaten. "You said I'd get to use one of your swords. Time to make good on your promise."

Ken's eyebrows quickly drop, giving him an extremely blank look on his face, well, blanker than usual. He just sighs before walking towards the door, motioning for Jubilee to follow him. She jumps in place before quickly following him.

"That happened," Shingen's phone goes off. "I must take this, Mariko, please be a good host for our guests, after they are done-"

"Show them to the guest rooms. I know, Father." Mariko finishes.

Shingen nods as he leaves, four of the eight guards leaving with him. "Sooo, your brother always dat intense?" Remy breaks the awkward silence, Rogue slaps him in the arm.

Mariko just laughs lightly, using her hand to cover her mouth. "Yes, Keniuchio has. I believe some of it has to do with his birth."

"What do you mean?" Jean asks.

"My brother is illegitimate, because of that I am next in line to take over the company, even though he is older than I am." Mariko explains.

"Why? I mean, bastards haven't been a thing since the medieval times, right? Unless your dad's a big fan of _Game of Thrones_ that makes no sense." I counter.

She looks down, shame in her eyes. "There's more to it that I cannot say, private matters. I hope you understand."

"Of course, Mariko." Scott says.

"Your gruff friend, Logan, is it? Why did he react to that name like that?" Mariko asks, changing the topic.

"Logan's memory is scrambled, he only remembers up to five, almost six years ago. But we didn't meet him until a couple of years ago. It's entirely possible he ran into this Yuriko before he met us." Jean answers.

Mariko nods. "I see," Three chefs come in from a door in the back of the dining room, two carts pushed by them. A cake on one and some ice cream on the other. "Ah, desert! Please, help yourselves."

Bobby lets out a little laugh as he looks at the ice cream. "Don't mind if I do."

I scoot back in my seat and get up; Kitty looks up at me. "Nolan?"

"I'm good, all the food got me full. I'm gonna look for Logan." I explain.

"Can you find him? Our home is rather large?" Mariko asks, some worry clear in her voice.

"Don't worry about me, I can find him." I say. I turn around and exit the dining room. Switching to my Wolverine powers I sniff the air and find two familiar scents, Jubilee of to the west with who I can assume to be Ken, and Logan off to the north, alone. On the way there I hear Shingen's raised voice, intrigued I head down the hallway, but before I get any further, I stop and sniff the air. Yup, all six of his guards are waiting nearby him, two closer to him. Swapping to my Storm powers I create a light, but strong breeze and float upwards, going down the hallway I see four guards outside, two on each side of the door, the other two must be inside.

Swapping to my Thunderbird powers I listen carefully, while finding a good hiding spot. Dammit, I can't understand him, he's speaking Japanese. What to do, what to do. Got it! I swap to my Marvel Girl powers and telepathically download the Japanese language from one of the guards.

Sticking with my current powerset I decide to use the senses of one of the guards inside of the room, while also cloaking my presence to the guards outside. Using the eyes and ears of one of the guards inside I get a part of the conversation.

"_-ike I said, the X-Men are here, and the one known as Wolverine reacted violently when Yuriko was mentioned. Ask her if the two of them have a history, Tomo." _Shingen roars into the phone.

Interesting. Looks like Tomo and Shingen are in league with each other, but why make it seem like Saburo's the bad guy? Time to listen back in. "_No. Don't you dare change the plan. Think for once, Tomo, if we can get Shiro under our control entirely we could easily take over Japan's underworld, with Shiro's power of the sun and Keniuchio's tachyon fields no one will stop us"_

Looks like Kenny boy's a mutant too, but what does 'tachyon fields' mean? How do those work as his powers? I mean, don't tachyons usually relate to time travel and shit? "_Yes, yes, I understand. Tomo, I must go, I will send the X-Men to you, but do not worry, the Silver Samurai will assist you. Goodbye, brother." _Shingen ends the phone call.

Exiting from the head of the guard I walk towards Logan, mulling over what I just learned. So, Shingen's going to 'find out' where his brother and Shiro are, causing a battle between the two sides. Chances are we're gonna fight Shiro and Yuirko, and this Silver Samurai's gonna be there too. Wait a minute, Ken's tie was silver, wasn't it? Oh, Ken, you sly dog you. Talk about subtly revealing your identity.

Shit, Jubilee. My walk towards Logan becomes a jog, once I reach the doors to where he is, I slide it open to find Logan relaxing in a garden, after a moment he opens one of his eyes. "What'd you find out, Shifty?"

I sit across from him in a similar position, I think it's called seiza. I create a telepathic link between the two of us. _"Shingen's been playing us. He's in on Tomo's plan, Keniuchio is also, and he's a mutant called the Silver Samurai."_

_ "I've heard of him, apparently his sword can cut through anything, his sword glows silver before it cuts through shit." _Logan replies.

_"That would explain the tachyon fields Shingen mentioned. Shingen's gonna 'find' Tomo and Shiro and send us to them, a fight's more than likely to break out between us, Tomo's men, Shiro, and Yuriko. Ken's gonna be there too as the Silver Samurai."_ I continue.

_"You know why this is happening?" _Logan asks.

_"Shingen and Tomo plan to take over the entire Japanese underworld, with Shiro and Ken as their enforcers, chances are Yuriko's gonna be one as well." _I finish.

_"It's entirely possible Shiro's little sister'll get dragged into this once it's confirmed she's a mutant. Where's the rest of the team?" _Logan says.

_"Probably in the dining room still, eating dessert. By the way, I'm pretty sure Mariko knows something about this, but I don't think she's an active part of the plan." _I tell him.

We feel a third presence in our conversation. _"Where are you two?" _Jean asks.

_"The meditation garden. The kid's got news."_ Logan says.

_"Shingen's playing us. He's working with Tomo to indoctrinate Shiro into helping them take over the Japanese underworld, Yuriko's training Shiro in assassination skills. Keniushio's a mutant called the Silver Samurai; his mutation allows him to cut through anything with tachyon fields." _I begin.

_"And Shingen's going to somehow figure out where they are and send us to an ambush, where we'll have to fight Shiro, Yuriko, the Silver Samurai, and Tomo's men. Is that right?" _Jean asks.

_"Yup." _Logan and I reply.

_"Shingen just returned, we'll continue this conversation on the way there. Nolan, I'll have you tell the others." _Jean cuts off the communication.

A guard opens the door and bows deeply. "Logan-san, Nolan-san, Shingen-sama urgently requests your presence back in the dining room."

Logan and I open our eyes and nod before getting up. "Lead the way." I say to the guard.

On the way their we run into Ken and a sweaty, but still energetic, Jubilee. "Hey guys! Guess what? I got to use a katana! And that's not all, Kenny here said I have a natural affinity. I think I'm gonna come back every now and again to take lessons from Kenny. Right, Kenny?"

Logan and I share a look. This isn't going to end well, is it?

Ken sighs as he looks down at Jubilee. "Of course, Jubilation."

Jubilee's demeanor shifts for a second. "How many times do I have to say it? Call me Jubilee."

Ken stares at her as we stop outside of the door to the dining room. "No. Jubilation," A small smirk is seen on his face as he steps into the dining room. "Father, what is it?"

"I believe I have found Shiro," He places a map of Japan on the table, a red circle at the eastern edge of the island country. "Normally I would request you go there as soon as possible but knowing my brother there will be deadly traps in play, and his men will be hidden in every corner. I will send some of my more skilled men, alongside my son, out to scout the area, they should return by tomorrow. Until then I recommend you all rest and make any necessary plans."

Scott steps forward and traces his finger over the map. "That's at least a half a day's travel from here, what if we go with your men now?"

"I would strongly insist against that. I am your host, please allow me the chance to make your stay comfortable while I can. Besides, you all just ate a hefty meal, at least let it sit." Shingen offers.

Scott looks over the team. "Okay, we accept your hospitality. Thank you." He bows, we all follow suit, well, except for Logan, he just nods.

Shingen smiles before leaving the dining room with his son and his guards, leaving Mariko and her guards with us. "Please, let me show you to the guest rooms."

We follow Mariko and her guards towards the guest rooms. Logan, Scott, Jean, and I at the back. "Jean told me everything," Scott whispers. "We'll tell the others later, right now let's just play along."

Yeah, the guest rooms? They weren't guest rooms. It's more like a house for guest to stay at while at the Yashida Mansion. "Damn, Ah've never seen a house this big in mah life." Rogue whispers in awe as she spins around, looking at the paintings on the roof.

"Father made sure the guest room would tend to all of our guests needs, especially when you consider the fact that we have many guests through the year, so we just had a home created for the guests," Mariko begins a tour through the home. "There are a total of twenty rooms, each with their own bathrooms, a kitchen, a gym, two recreational areas, a meditation room, a laundry room, and more."

The tour ends in the massive recreational area, a modern kitchen adjacent to where we are, Remy and Bobby rummage through the fridge. One of the guards places a finger on his comm before whispering something to Mariko. "Sorry, but my father requires my assistance. Have a good night." She bows.

We do the same. "Thanks for showing us around." Logan says, tipping his hat slightly as he does.

A faint blush can be seen on Mariko's face before she leaves. Once the door closes we all look around, Kitty lets out a gasp as she notices something in nearby the massive television, she grabs me by the arm and drags me towards it, phasing the both of us through a couch and the table in the center.

"Nolan! Look. At. This." She excitedly says, grabbing me by the face and forcing me to look at a laptop.

"It's a laptop." I say.

Kitty gasps as if I insulted Odin or something. (Which I did on accident once during one of my training sessions with Thor. I was attacked by ravens for weeks.) "It's not 'a laptop', it's a Yashida KatanaPad 4, second only to Stark Tech laptops."

"Okay. If it's so good just take it, I don't think they'd mind." I say.

"Nolan, they're our hosts, I can't just take shit from them." She says.

"I don't think they'd care if you took one of their laptops. Hell, pretty sure they'd expect you to take one." I argue.

Kitty puts a finger in my face-not literally-and prepares to argue back, but she just opens her mouth and says nothing before putting her finger down and nodding. "Point."

"Y'all noticed somehin' off? Or was dat only Remy?" Remy asked as he put together a sandwich for himself and Rogue, seeing as she's standing next to him and telling him what to put in it.

"Yeah, the fact that this place is an impressive fusion of classic and modern." Scott says confusing Remy greatly. Jean creates a mental link between all of us. _"I know what you're talking about Remy, but we can't say it out right, this place is most likely bugged."_

"Remy never knew it was possible to do that, guess he was wrong." Remy plays along.

"Huh, _Stardust Crusaders_ rerun," Bobby turns to me. "Hey, Nol, when's it coming back?"

"Uh, January 9th, I think. What else is on?" I sit down next to Bobby.

Jean smacks the both of us on the back of our heads. "C'mon you two, we've got a big day ahead of us. Let's go to sleep. You too, Remy." We all look to see Remy attempt to take a bite out of his massive sandwich, reminded me of Shaggy to be honest.

We all go upstairs and enter our rooms, here I find a large mattress, everyone else's rooms must look the same. I turn off the light, take off my jacket and shoes and lay in bed. _"Everyone here?" _I telepathically call out.

I get affirmatives from everyone. _"Alright, right off the bat: Shingen's been playing us. He has a plan with Tomo to take over the entire Japanese underworld by using Shiro and Ken as enforcers." _

_ "What the hell, man?"_ Jubilee says.

_"Don't blame me, blame Shingen. Anyway, this Yuriko chick's training Shiro, and Ken's a mutant called the Silver Samurai." _I continue.

_"John, Ororo, and I have seen the aftermath of one of his attacks once. About four months ago, actually." _Bobby adds.

_"I remember that." _Scott says.

_"What's next, Nolan?" _Rogue asks.

_"Well, as we saw, Shingen conveniently found their location, and by sending his men and Ken there we're gonna fight them once we have to go there. Chances are this Yuriko chick's a mutant or has powers at least." _I explain.

_"Neither, she's a cyborg, goes by Lady Deathstrike." _Logan adds.

_"Right, how do you know her?" _Kitty asks.

_"One of the first memories I have is waking up in a place called Madripoor-an absolute shithole-she was one of the first people I ran into. Her cybernetics allow her the ability superhuman capabilities, and her nails can extend up to a foot and cut through nearly anything." _Logan tells us.

_"That means I can't copy her powers than." _I tell the others.

_"Why?" _Jubilee questions.

_"Her powers aren't natural, meaning I can't emulate them." _I explain.

_ "Jubilee, Remy, how good are your acting skills?" _Scott asks.

_"Pretty good, why?" _They both reply at the same time.

_"The two of you and Bobby are gonna stay behind, pretend you can't make it due to food poisoning or whatever. You three will stay behind and interrogate Shingen. The rest of us will go along with his plot, Logan, Jean, I want the two of you to take out Keniuchio as fast as possible." _Scott begins to plan.

Rogue pipes up. _"What about Mariko?"_

_ "She isn't against us outright, yeah she knows her father's plan, but she doesn't have a hand in it. Bobby could trap her in her room with an ice wall." _I offer.

_"Rogue, I want you to take Shiro out of the equation as soon as possible, chances are Keniuchio and his men will turn on us during the fight. Thankfully they don't know that we know, so we can definitely use this to our advantage. Kitty, Nolan, deal with the guards. Got it everyone?" _Scott finishes.

_"Got it." _We all reply.

_"See you tomorrow, X-Men." _Scott exits the call, followed by everyone but Kitty.

_"You ready, Nol?" _She asks.

_"I've been ready, Kit," _I pause as I take a deep breath. _"Are you?"_

She's quiet for a moment. _"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready," _She becomes quiet again, before I could ask what was wrong, she speaks up again. _"See you tomorrow, Nol." _She exits the call.

Why was she like that? I'll ask tomorrow, I'm getting pretty damn tired right now. Time to fight a samurai tomorrow.

* * *

A knock resonates from my door. Getting up I walk towards the door and open it to see one of the guards standing on the other side. "Sir, Shingen-sama requests your presence in the dining room immediately!"

"Got it." He bows before walking over to the next door, which happened to be Rogue's. After he finishes talking to her the two of us make eye contact before nodding. Three other guards wake up the rest of the team. Well, everyone but Jubilee, Remy, and Bobby. We all follow the guards to the dining room where we find Shingen, Mariko, and their guards waiting.

"Sorry to wake you all so early but Keniuchio has sent an urgent message. Your presence is needed immediately-three of you are missing, why?" Shingen looks at Scott.

Scott scratches his cheek with a finger. "Yeah, the food didn't agree with them last night unfortunately. Don't worry, we can still save your nephew."

Shingen looks at us with a critical eye before nodding, a small smile emerging on his face. "Of course. Keniuchio's message was simple: Tomo's plan has moved ahead, we believe they plan to attack sooner than expected. Tomorrow soon."

"What're we waitin' for? Let's go." Rogue punches her fist into her other hand.

Shingen's smile grows. "Don't let me keep you waiting. Some of our guards will go with you."

We all get up from our seats and head towards the cars. On the way there I use my Thunderbird powers and listen to what Shingen says to his guards as we leave, having downloaded Japanese last night. _"Send a group of guards to their rooms. Keep the three of them as hostages."_

_ "Guys, Shingen's gonna send some guards your way to hold you hostage. Be ready." _I tell the rest of the team after swapping to my Marvel Girl powers.

_"You know Japanese?" _Bobby asks.

_"Downloaded it from one of the guards last night." _I reply.

_"Alright. See you guys later." _Kitty says.

I end the telepathic call as we enter two different cars. Scott, Rogue, and I in one car with Logan, Jean, and Kitty in the other, four guards riding with us in each car. The car ride there is tense, doesn't help that the guards refuse to talk to us the entire ride there. And it's a looong ride. After some hours we finally make it to an abandoned facility.

Outside we see some 'injured' guards outside waiting for us. One of them walks to us once he notices us. "Problem," He breaths heavily, leaning on one of the guards who came with us. "It was an ambush. Keniuchio-sama has been taken by the enemy, along with half of us."

"Don't worry, we're here to help," Scott reassures. "What's the layout of the building?"

He pulls out his phone and sends a message to the tablet in the car. The guard helping up the injured guy pulls out the tablet and shows us the building's layout. "Jean, Logan, you'll be our vanguard. Rogue, you're with me, we'll try to apprehend Shiro as fast as possible. Kitty, Nolan, you'll work with the guards to take out Tomo's men."

"What about Yuriko?" One of the injured guards asks.

"Rogue and I'll deal with her after we help Shiro. Come on, we've wasted enough time as is." A crimson glow emerges from behind Scott's glasses.

Rocks and random debris float around Jean as she walks up to the doors, Logan crouched down with his claws out. Jean thrusts her arm forward, sending her weapons through the front doors, also sending Tomo's men flying. Logan leaps in, roaring as he does, and lands on two men, he slashes them with his claws before jumping to another group of guards.

A ball of fire flies towards Logan, seeing it coming Logan dodges out of the way. From the skies comes a person wearing a red and white suit. The bottoms are entirely red, while the top is made of red and white stripes, with a mask over the top half of his face, two fin-like protrusions on the side of the mask, the forehead has yellow lines on it.

"We knew you were coming, X-Men. My name is Shiro Yoshida, you may call me Sunfire! You will not stop me, my uncle told me the evils of the western world. I will rectify the mistakes done by your people!" Shiro, or Sunfire, announces as he fires a beam of fire at us, we scatter out of the way.

I switch to my elemental powers and fire a strong jet of water towards Sunfire. Our attacks combine and create a giant smokescreen in response. Jean creates a psychic link between us. _"Now!" _I shout to Scott and Rogue.

From the steam I see a concussive beam fly towards Sunfire towards the ground. Rogue takes the advantage and leaps on him; she takes off her glove and places her hand on the exposed part of his face. Well, that was quick.

_ "Incoming!"_ Logan warns us.

From a ledge drops a massive form, once the steam clears, we see Keniuchio in his Silver Samurai armor. His already massive form is made even bigger, his silver and black armor with a rising sun symbol on the front of his chest piece. He pulls his katana out, after a minute it glows with a silver energy.

We all stop fighting as our side and Silver Samurai's side stand on either side of the room, keeping a careful eye on each other. From behind Silver Samurai walks an attractive Asian woman, black pants and armor on the top. Logan and Jean stand in front of our group, Scott and a floating Rogue to one side and Kitty and I in the back.

Silver Samurai points at us with his katana. "Surrender Sunfire to us now. Or we will be forced to attack you…with lethal force."

Scott smirks as he walks alongside Kitty and I. "Whatever you say. Keniuchio."

Everyone else's eyes widen. Silver Samurai steps forward. "How." He growls.

"Is it really important?" Scott asks. Silver Samurai just growls as he gets in a fighting stance. "Guess not. We also know that this was all planned by your father and uncle, and that our 'guards' were meant to betray us."

Before the guards could turn on us Scott lowers his glasses and fires at the group, Rogue does the same with her Sunfire powers and fires at them from above. Scott, Logan, and Jean then turn towards the other group of guards, Silver Samurai, and Lady Deathstrike and fight them, Kitty, Rogue, and I deal with the left-over guards on our side.

My tattoos glow brown, I stomp on the ground, sending the remaining guards into the sky where Rogue flies by, blasting them with bursts of flame. Kitty runs into the middle of the group-using her intangibility to avoid hits-and hits back when she has the chance to, taking out two of the guards.

Shifting the ground, I lift two large rocks and morph them around my arms, creating giant gauntlets. I punch one of the guards into the distance, grab two by the head and bash them together, and grab another by the head and throw him into two others.

"Our guards are done, now what?" Rogue asks as she floats towards Kitty and me.

Looking to the rest of the team we see the number of guards dwindling, which is good. On the other hand, we notice Logan and Lady Deathstrike fighting toe to toe, and Scott and Jean struggling against Silver Samurai.

"Kitty, Rogue, help Logan deal with Deathstrike, Rogue stay in the sky. I'll help Scott and Jean." I say. I gather more rocks and create giant stone armor around me. Thanks to the fight Silver Samurai doesn't notice me running towards him, once I get close enough Jean and Scott move out of the way, confused he turns around just as I shoulder check him into the next room.

Silver Samurai kicks me off of him and slices at me, I jump backwards with each swipe, losing more and more of my armor each time. Before he could make a fourth slash a concussive blast from Cyclops sends him skidding back a few feet. As he recovered more rocks and metal fly towards him, sending him back even further.

Scott and Jean run through the hole and continue their barrage, I add by shifting the ground under Samurai, giving him almost no footing. I notice his arm quickly go to his side, he then quickly throws his arm out, throwing three glowing kunai at us. Jean and Scott roll out of the way, stopping their barrage, I quickly shift to my Wolverine powers, the kunai stabs into my chest, completely ignoring my armor.

Dammit, how am I gonna get outta this now? I can't exactly switch to back to my elemental powers due to the kunai in my chest, and I'm not strong enough to break through this. Looking through the slit I notice debris and bursts of red light followed by silver blades. Well, can't ask Scott or Jean, they're pretty busy right now. Maybe my Thor powers could come in handy, I mean, the kunai's only in my lung, so it won't be so bad, right?

It hurts, motherfucker it hurts. Even with superhuman durability having a kunai in my lung's still pretty damn painful. Gritting my teeth, I slowly get up, glaring at Samurai my eyes glow blue, I lift my arm, the rocks around it break off, and fire a lightning bolt at Samurai's back, sending him flying into Scott's beam.

Jean lifts a giant rock and drops it over Samurai's prone body. The explosion of dust causes all of us to cough, once it fades away, we stand next to each other and look at the boulder. "That…was a bitch." I gasp out.

"Agreed," Scott looks at me and points at the kunai in my chest. "Hey, Nolan, you, uh, you've got a kunai in your chest."

I look down at my chest. Huh, how'd I forget about that? Swapping to my Wolverine powers I grit as I pull it out, the wound instantly heals. Rogue flies into me, sending us both to the ground. "Hey guys, Ah see you're havin' an easier time than us." She says as she sits on my back.

"Yeah, we are. Get the hell off of me." I growl. She doesn't, so I get up, sending her tumbling to the ground. I turn around and pick her up.

"Shiro's back up, by the way. He sent me through the hole." Rogue says.

"Lovely," I drawl. "Now what?"

Jean steps forward. "I've got it," for a moment I see her telepathically do something. "Gave Shiro an info dump, he's helping us beat Lady Deathstrike."

"Dope." We go through the hole and find Deathstrike struggling against Logan, Sunfire, and Kitty. I extend my claws and leap towards her, Scott and Jean send their attacks as they do, completely overwhelming Deathstrike.

Logan and I hit her with slash after slash, I see her body quickly repair itself. Orbs of fire constantly collide with her body alongside debris from the area, a concussive beam forcing her back.

Reaching into her utility belt she grabs a small ball and throws it down, releasing a strong gas that messes with mine and Logan's senses. Once it clears, we look around to find her gone. Slowly we all exit the building, we stop in front of the cars, Shiro standing behind us, we turn around to look at him as he coughs, his mask off.

"I…I apologize for my rash actions. I was blinded by my rage and my stupidity," He bows. "Please, forgive me."

"It's no problem, same thing happened to me, no harm done." Rogue reassures.

"Guys, Bobby just called, they're at the airport." Jean tells us.

"How'd things go with Shingen?" Kitty asks.

"They'll tell us there. Come on, the sooner we get there the better." Jean enters one of the cars. We all follow suit.

The entire ride there Shiro is entirely silent.

* * *

At the airport we find Bobby, Remy, Jubilee, and surprisingly enough Mariko is with them. "Hello cousin, how are you?" She begins.

"Fine. I am fine. Why are you here? Where is your father?" Shiro places his hands on her shoulders as he asks these questions.

"I decided to help them. Father believes they've kidnapped me, you must leave soon, his men are surely on their way," She hands Logan a usb. "Thank you." She gives him a peck on the cheek before walking away.

We all stare at Logan's rigid form. "Maybe she's got some brain damage?" Bobby says. Shiro and Logan both glare at him. "Sorry! Sorry! Please forgive me!"

Logan looks to the distance. "She's right, Shingen's men are on their way. We should go now."

We all enter the _Blackbird _after a few minutes of getting the jet ready we lift off, continuing westward. "How'd things go for you guys?" Jubilee asks.

"Ninja guards, samurais, fire mutants, and crazy assassin ladies, I think that's a regular X-Men mission?" Kitty says, looking at me for confirmation at the last bit.

I nod. "In my short time with the team I find this to be pretty normal now. How'd things go for you?" I ask Jubilee.

"It was something. Learned about the death of Shiro's mother." Jubilee casually says.

Shiro jumps up and looks at Jubilee. "What!?"

"Yeah, you'll want to sit down for dis one," Remy cautiously says. "Your uncles Shingen and Saburo had your mom killed, all so dey could blame it on Americans to make it easier to manipulate you."

Shiro's hands light on fire, his eyes glow orange as he growls. "Next time I see them." He says the rest under his breath, but we get the gist of it.

"Wait, where was Saburo?" Rogue asks.

I blink at that. Now that I think about it, we never saw any hint of Saburo there now, did we? "He left as the 'battle' began, he's more than likely with my uncle."

"And your dad?" Kitty asks.

"He'll be fine, the two of them wouldn't dare to attack Father." Shiro sits down and sinks into his seat.

Bobby turns his seat around and stares at Shiro, the fire mutant's face quickly becomes annoyed. "What?"

"You need a codename. I mean, you've already got a suit, but you need a codename." Bobby says.

"I already have one: Sunfire." Shiro simply says.

Bobby nods in satisfaction before turning his chair around. "That's a cool name." Bobby whispers to me.

I just chuckle and shake my head as I lean my seat back. Goodbye Japan, hello Russia. See you soon, Piotr Rasputin.

* * *

**Mother of God these chapters are getting longer and longer, aren't they? Sooner or later I will make 10,000-word chapters, we'll see how that goes. Speaking of 10k word chapters I'm making my DC story right now, currently I'm working on the first chapter right now; it'll take some time, but I'll post it eventually. I also plan on making a Fire Emblem fanfic, more specifically Three Houses. More on that later.**

**By the way, college is a bitch right now, one class in particular. We'll see how things go, but if I can't balance the two than this story will slow down sadly, but I'll stick with it, don't worry. **

**That's all from me. Please, leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next week. **


	19. Ra Ra Rasputin

**Dear sweet mother of God I hate my laptop for the first ten minutes when it's starting up. Everything's lagging, nothing responds, and it moves at the pace of a snail with a broken leg. I know, that doesn't make sense, but that's how it is.**

**Anyways it's time to bring in everyone's favorite metal Russian, Colossus! He won't be the only big-name Russian in this chapter also, you may already know who the other one is, but I have a few more planned out for this one. That's enough from me, on with the story.**

* * *

**Ra Ra Rasputin**

Unlike the others Shiro doesn't talk much, and when he does, he's either formal or arrogant, so yeah, there's that. The trip Russia takes some time, especially considering the fact that Piotr's place is more or less in Siberia instead of Russia. We find out that he lives on a farm too, and a large one at that, and there's a large plot of land that isn't owned by anyone, so we decide to land the _Blackbird _there, making the recruitment easier for all of us.

Speaking of an easy recruitment. "How much do you guys wanna bet we're gonna have to fight someone in Russia?" Bobby asks.

"Ah don't take bets if Ah know Ah'm gonna lose 'em, Bobby." Rogue replies.

"It is normal for battle during your recruitments?" Shiro asks. A few hours into the ride Scott offered him some extra clothes to change into, a black long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans.

"Yeah. When chere and Remy were recruited we were being manipulated too. Kitty's ex-boyfriend destroyed a school. Jubilee here was kidnapped by Sentinels-" Remy answers.

"Nolan was too." Jubilee argues.

Remy rolls his eyes. "Nolan was too. And we all know what happened with your recruitment."

"Then we must prepare for battle once we arrive in Russia." Shiro folds his arms and leans forward.

"Come on guys, it's entirely possible this recruitment will go swimmingly." Scott says.

We all stare at him.

"Yeah, yeah, you're all right. Let's see how things play out first, then we'll plan for combat when we need to, yeah?" Scott says. We all give our own affirmatives. "Good. Strap in, it's time to land."

After the landing sequence we exit the lowered ramp of the jet, in the distance we can see a truck driving towards us. Once it stops in front of us two men exit the vehicle the smaller, but still built, man looks to be in his late forties to early fifties and the large one is maybe seventeen or eighteen. The older man cautiously walks up to us, his son trailing behind him. After a moment the older man nods and holds his arm out for Scott to shake. "You must be the X-Men! It is so nice to meet you. My name is Nikolai Rasputin, this is my son, Piotr."

"Hello." Piotr says with a heavy accent.

"It's nice to meet you. My name is Scott Summers, these are my friends: Jean Grey, Bobby Drake, Logan, Nolan Belmont, Remy LeBeau, Anna Marie (You can call her Rogue) Jubilee, and Shiro Yoshida. Thank you for meeting with us." Scott says.

"Excuse me," Jean interrupts. "Before we begin could we possibly go elsewhere, this cold's doing nothing to help."

Nikolai bellows a laugh. "Of course, of course," He looks at the group and adopts a sheepish look. "I'm sorry to say but, not all of us will fit in my truck."

Bobby ices up, surprising the two. "It's cool, some of us can use our powers to follow."

Scott, Logan, and Remy get into the bed of the truck, while Jubilee, Jean, and Rogue enter the back seats. "Think you can fly me there, Nol?" Kitty asks me.

I ignore the snickers from Bobby, Jubilee, Jean, and Remy as I nod. I swap to my Sunfire powers and carry Kitty bridal style as I float into the air, Shiro following suit. The truck then comes to life and turns around towards the farm in the distance. "What do you guys think is gonna happen?" I ask.

"Sentinels." Bobby says.

"Racists." Kitty adds.

"Maybe another mutant." Shiro says.

"Alright, well, only one way to find out." I say as we continue the journey to the Rasputin farm.

* * *

After a few more minutes of flight we finally make it to the farm, outside we see two people waiting for us, an older woman and a young girl, probably around the same age as Jubilee. Shiro and I land as Bobby jumps off his ice slide, I put down Kitty as the rest of the group exit the truck, Piotr and his father walk towards the other two.

"Let me introduce my lovely wife and daughter: Alexandra and Illyana." Nikolai introduces.

Alexandra walks towards us, Illyana hiding behind her leg. "Hello, I hope your trip was comfortable. Please, come in."

We follow into the house. Once inside we all enter the living room, although some of us were in the connected dining room. "Thank you for your hospitality Mrs. Rasputin," Scott begins as Piotr hands him a water bottle. "As you may already know we are the X-Men, and we're here to recruit your son."

Mr. and Mrs. Rasputin share a worried look. While this is happening Illyana walks up to Scott. "Is it because he can turn into metal?"

Scott smiles as he gives her a thumbs up. "Yeah. We were hoping he'd come with us to our school to learn how to better use his powers," He notices the concerned look on her parents faces. "And don't worry, Piotr is capable of visiting whenever he would like to, or you could visit yourselves, the school would pay all of the expenses."

Their concerned faces lighten slightly. "That is good to know, but what I really want to know is if my son must fight, after all even we know of the X-Men out here," She places her hand over her son's in a comforting manner. "I don't want my little boy hurt."

Remy, Jubilee, Bobby, and Jean all let out light snickers, causing Piotr's embarrassed blush to intensify. "Mother, I will be fine, I am a man now, and my powers help." Piotr gets up and stands in the center of the room, his skin quickly becomes metallic, with lines all along his arms.

"Not gonna lie, Ah'm impressed." Rogue comments. We all nod in agreement.

"What are your powers? If you don't mind me asking, of course. For the one's that aren't known X-Men." Piotr asks as he shifts back to normal.

"Ah can absorb people's powers and life force through skin contact." Rogue begins.

"Remy can make things explode." Remy says.

"I can phase through things." Kitty says as she puts her hand through the table.

Jubilee creates some fireworks. "I make super powerful fireworks."

"I control heat." Shiro lightly says.

The Rasputin family look at me. "Seriously, you still don't know who I am?" They all shake their heads. I sigh in annoyance as I take on a metallic form just like Piotr's. "After I see powers in use, I can copy them." To demonstrate I swap to my Jubilee powers and create fireworks between my hands.

"Back to the topic at hand: what do you say about Piotr joining the X-Men?" Scott says.

"I-please, let me think on it. I will have your answer tomorrow, there is much to think on." Piotr requests.

"Of course," Jean looks at her watch. "It's getting late, we should find a place to stay for the night."

"We have a guest room upstairs; it is rather large, but I don't believe all of you will fit." Mr. Rasputin says.

"Us ladies will take it, thank you." Jean quickly says. She turns to the other three and motions them forward, following Mrs. Rasputin and Illyana upstairs.

"Guess we could sleep in the living room." Bobby says.

"Guess so." I reply.

Mr. Rasputin gets up to gather some blankets and pillows for us, leaving the seven of us to wait in the living room. We all then begin to talk about random topics, almost all of us, I get up and walk towards the pictures above the fireplace, one in particular catches my eye. "Hey, Piotr, who's this guy?"

On the picture we see the four members of the Rasputin family, with a fifth person among them. This guy looks to be a little older than Piotr, and he shares some physical similarities with him. In the picture we see the family around him, large smiles on all of their faces, as he holds an astronaut helmet.

Piotr's face drops once he realizes who I was talking about. "Ah, yes. That is my older brother, Mikhail. That picture was taken two years ago when we found out he was accepted as a cosmonaut. He and his crew went missing after their first mission."

Good going Nolan, you just brough the mood down. Time to change the subject. "Why do you want to think on being an X-Man? Well, you don't have to be on the team necessarily, you could decide to just focus on academics if you want."

Piotr chuckles lightly as he leans back in the couch. "It feels wrong to leave my family. My parents are getting older, they need all the help they can get on the farm, and my sister, after Mikhail," He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I need to be there for her."

"But on the flip side?" Bobby asks.

Piotr looks at him with a raised eyebrow. "It means on the other hand." Scott explains.

Piotr nods. He raises his arm and shifts back into his metal form. "With this power I can help more than my family. My parents always told me to help whoever I can however I can, and by joining you I could easily help mutant children all over the world."

"Well, if your parents want you to help people then why don't you just join us?" Bobby asks.

Piotr visibly struggles to answer the question, luckily for him his father comes back with blankets and pillows for us. "I'm back! Sorry I took so long, we usually have the blankets in one easy to find spot, I guess Illyana did not feel like it." He rolls his eyes at the last part, Piotr chuckles as well.

Scott gets up and helps him. "Thank you for your hospitality again, Mr. Rasputin, we don't know how to repay you."

Mr. Rasputin just waves his hand. "No need to repay. I am one man helping another, what any man should do."

"Ya got that right." Logan grumbles as he takes a pillow and blanket from Mr. Rasputin.

"So, Piotr, how did you find out you were a mutant?" Remy asks.

"A couple of months ago some of Illyana's friends were over, they were playing hide-and-seek, and I guess one of them took off the brakes for our tractor." Piotr begins.

"Wait, 'took off'? Bobby asks.

"Our tractor had brake problems for a while, and the nearest mechanic who had the parts was gone for a period of time. We bought a new tractor later." Mr. Rasputin explained, a pointed look directed towards his son.

"Anyway, while they were playing Illyana had hid behind some boxes, so she didn't notice when the tractor was rolling towards her. Without explanation I ran forward, hoping to stop the tractor, and I did. My powers had activated at the moment," He sheepishly scratches his cheek before awkwardly coughing. "The, uh, the tractor was crushed due to the impact."

"Don't worry about it, Scott here destroyed a part of the danger room the first time he used his powers." Bobby jerks a thumb to said mutant. Scott chuckles guiltily as he sinks into the couch.

Mr. Rasputin looks at the clock on the wall and makes a noise of surprise. "Ah! Would you look at the time. Come, Piotr, let our guests sleep," He and his son get up, as do all of us. Mr. Rasputin and Piotr shake our hands individually. "I hope you are all morning risers, otherwise you won't be getting anything to eat tomorrow!"

"I think we'll be fine," Scott gives Bobby and I pointed looks. "Well, most of us, that is."

Bobby and I give him a deadpan stare as Mr. Rasputin laughs heartily. "See you tomorrow morning, comrades." The two go upstairs.

"They are…nice." Shiro says.

Logan nods. "Yeah. We need to get outta here ASAP, Slim."

Scott sighs as he places his blanket and pillow down. "Agreed. The longer we're here the more likely the Rasputin family will be attacked."

Bobby lets out a massive yawn. "Let's hope The Iron Giant has an answer tomorrow morning, yeah?"

Remy turns off the lamp, enshrouding the room in darkness. "Dat movie messed Remy up when he was little."

Scott makes a noise of agreement.

"Pretty damn sure I cried. Mom had to comfort me for a long time." I chime in.

"Never watched it." Logan says.

"Same." Shiro says.

Bobby lets out another yawn. "When we go home, we're gonna fix that." Good night guys."

Shiro and Remy make noises that sounds like 'good night'. Logan just grunts, as he does.

"Night guys." Scott says.

"What Scott said." I turn to my side and close my eyes.

* * *

"Hey, Nol, wake up."

I turn to my side and open my eyes. Standing above me is Kitty, a spoon in her mouth and a container of yogurt in her hand. She has a smile on her face as she pokes me on the nose. "Boop. You're wasting the day away by sleeping, c'mon. Maybe you can get some food before Logan goes through all of it."

"I don't eat that much!" Logan yells from the kitchen.

I get up, upper body first, and rub my eyes. No matter how much sleep I get I seem to always be tired. I then rub my nose, the last time Kitty did that was when she moved back home when the summer was nearing its end, which happened to be the last time we saw each other until recently.

Kitty lightly kicks me in the back. "Get up, slowpoke, or else we'll wake up Bobby."

Turning to my right I see a still sleeping Bobby, sprawled out, snoring lightly. I hurry up and quickly walk to the kitchen, ignoring Kitty as she laughs at me. Mr. Rasputin laughs lightly once he notices me and then turns to Scott. "You weren't wrong about those two being deep sleepers."  
Looking at the counter I see some food still there, looking at the table I see food on everyone's plates, more on Logan's then anyone else's. I raise an eyebrow and stare at him incredulously. "I'm sorry, what'd you say? 'I don't eat that much'? 'Cause, uh, that looks a lot like much to me."

Logan glares at me before turning back to his filled plate to eat. Illyana walks up to me and hands me a plate with some utensils on it. I smile. "Thanks." I think she has a light blush on her face, can't tell, she turns around quickly.

I get my food and stand between Remy and Shiro as we eat at the counter, after all, the table doesn't have enough space for all of us. Shiro turns to me. "Do you and Bobby stay asleep for that long normally?"

I sigh dramatically and lean my head back, tossing a grape into my mouth. "No matter how much sleep I get I'm always tired. It's annoying, not gonna lie. Don't know about Bobby though."

"Whoa! Hold up! What betrayal is this?" We all look to see Bobby standing, glaring at us. "No one thought to wake me up?"

"We wanted some food for the rest of us." Jean jokingly replies.

Bobby just waves his arms wildly at Logan, then at the counter where there is still a good amount of food. Remy chuckles as he tosses a plate to Bobby, Bobby barely reacts in time and fumbles for a moment before firmly catching the plate. "Thanks." He mutters.

As stands to the other side of Shiro, after getting his food, Piotr clears his throat and gets up, we all turn our attention to him. "I've made a decision, I'd like to-"

A knock can be heard from the door. Piotr's parents share a confused look, his father then looks at Piotr and nods towards the door, Piotr's skin becomes steel. Remy pulls out a deck of cards, Shiro's hands glow, Bobby ices up, and Jean and I create a telekinetic shield around everyone else.

Mr. Rasputin opens the door. "Hello?"  
The person walks in; they stop once they realize the firepower aimed against them. "Well, that's one way to greet your guest."

She has long red hair and has green eyes. She wears a skintight black suit with a golden belt, the buckle has a red and black hourglass on it, her gauntlets are golden as well, and it looks to be like a whole bunch of rectangular devices connected to each other.

Piotr looms over her. "Guests do not invite themselves in. Who are you?"

"My name is-"

"Natasha Romanoff, otherwise known as the Black Widow," Logan interrupts. We all back off but don't entirely stand down, not yet at least. "What are you doing here?"

"Logan, you look…cozy. I'm here for two reasons: SHIELD wants to know why you X-Men are travelling the world. The other reason involves a dangerous mutant seen around the area." She answers.

"Why does Fury wanna know about our business?" Logan asks.

She raises an eyebrow. "Do you really believe Fury would tell me his reason?"

Logan nods. "Of course, he wouldn't."

Illyana leans to Kitty. "What's SHIELD?"

Natasha turns to Illyana and gives her a disarming smile. "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

"I see why they call it SHIELD" Mrs. Rasputin says under her breath.

"Who's the mutant?" Rogue asks.

"Arkady Rossovich," She walks to the table and places down a holographic projector, showing the information on the target. "Also known as Omega Red. Logan has had some encounters with him in the past."

"First Deathstrike now this guy, how many people does Logan know?" Bobby whispers to Shiro and I.

"Can't forget that he's a lot older than he appears, and he doesn't even remember anything before almost six years ago." I add.

Logan glares at us, we shut up. "Omega Red's dangerous. Superhuman physical attributes along with a regenerative healing factor, but that's not his most impressive power," Logan swipes down, showing the known power list of Omega Red. "It's called a death factor, with it he can kill you just by bein' around you, doesn't help that he's also capable of absorbing people's life force through physical contact."

"So, stay away from him?" Jubilee asks.

A full body picture of him is shown. Oh, those won't be fun to deal with, not at all. "He's into hentai?" Bobby asks incredulously.

Shiro breaths out of his nose strongly, Jean places her head in her hands, Scott and Logan glare at him, and I just face palm. "Jesus, Bobby, what the hell, man?"

"What's hentai?" Illyana asks curiously.

"Trust me, Sugah, ya don't wanna know." Rogue warns. She then turns to glare at Bobby.

"Sorry." Bobby seems to shrink into himself.

From the top of Omega Red's wrists come two thick tentacles, one on each arm, their ends look to be extremely sharp, and I'd be willing to bet that they could extend if he wanted them to.

"Then we go to stop this…Omega Red, da?" Piotr asked.

"You don't have to go if you don't want to, we can handle this just fine." Scott suggests.

Piotr nods resolutely. "I will go. Who knows, maybe my organic steel form will help me resist his death factor?"

His mother walks up to him. "Are you sure Piotr? As they said, you do not have to do this if you don't want to."  
He holds her hands in between his own and gives her a soft smile. "I am sure, mother," He turns to the rest of us. "As I was saying, I have made my decision, I would like to join the X-Men."

Scott smiles and nods before turning back to Black Widow. "Nolan, Piotr, Shiro, Logan, and Jean will be with us to deal with Omega Red."

"And the rest of us?" Jubilee asks.

"Stay here and protect our hosts, if SHIELD's found us chances are our enemies have as well, defend this place, got it? Bobby, you're in charge." Scott orders.

We put our plates in the sink and head out, walking towards the _Blackbird _we see a small number of SHIELD agents, Coulson among them. "Hey, hey, hey! Coulson, how are ya?" I shout out, my arms stretched out in greeting.

He looks up from whatever he's working on and looks at us, once his eyes land on me he darts his eyes around, like he's trying to ignore me. Guess the George incident is still awkward for him. "X-Men, thank you for joining us."

"For the rest of you, this is Agent Phil Coulson, one of our best agents. He'll be able to tell brief you on the situation." Black Widow then gives him the spotlight.

"A few hours ago, Arkady Rossovich was seen at an abandoned farm a few miles south of our current location." Coulson begins.

"South? That's where the Yahontov family lives, are they okay?" Piotr asks, worried.

Coulson shakes his head. "We found some shriveled up bodies near the farm, we later identified them to be the Yahontov family," Piotr clenches his fist. "We had sent in some men, but during the live feed they were all killed."

He presses some buttons on the tablet next to him. A holographic screen shows the point of view of one of the SHIELD troops as they carefully walked through the house. As they near the steps a tentacle whips from out of nowhere and grabs the person in front and drags him screaming up the stairs. A wet sickening sound is heard, then silence. Turning around, the point of view shows the remaining three agents attempting to keep their cool. Suddenly another wet sound can be heard. Looking down the SHIELD agent sees a tentacle through his chest, he is then thrown aside. The rest of the footage shows a blur of red and silver running through the agents, killing them all.

Coulson turns it off. "That was thirty minutes ago, since then things have been silent."

"So, you want us to walk into that horror film and take out the monster?" I ask.

He doesn't look at me, but he nods and responds. "That's exactly what we want you to do," He then shows another live feed, this one with a bird's eye view. "During the past thirty minutes some more, unidentified men have shown up, they have since been assisting Arkady. The plan is to combine our forces to rush the house and arrest him."

"What'll she be doin'?" Logan nods towards Black Widow.

"I will be gaining intel on Omega Red while you all battle. Try to figure out why exactly he's here." Black Widow says.

Coulson looks at Scott. "Speaking of, did you ever tell Black Widow what you X-Men were doing, travelling across the world and whatever?"

"Need to know. Sorry." Scott replies.

Black Widow has a smirk on her face as she hums. She then turns to Coulson. "We should get going, the sooner we defeat Omega Red, the better."

Coulson turns to his agents and clears his throat, getting all of their attention. "Agents! We are now moving out; Operation Alpha Blue is a go!"

"Alpha Blue?" Piotr asks.

Coulson just shrugs. "It was that or Delta Yellow."

"Like the Man with the Yellow Hat from _Curious George_." I say.

Coulson's face becomes ash white. I laugh under my breath, much to the confusion of Logan. I just give him an 'I'll tell you later' look as we head into the second vehicle in this envoy.

* * *

We stop about a mile out of the farm. Coulson, and thirteen SHIELD agents rush out of the vehicles, after a moment we hear gunfire and explosions. "Alright, we're up." Black Widow announces.

We exit the vehicle, as we near the battle Jean cloaks our presence from Omega Red's men. Once we near the door Black Widow separates from us and climbs up the side of the home, entering through one of the windows.

Piotr steps forward and transforms into his steel form, he looks at me. "Is there anyone on the other side of this door?"

I use my super hearing. "Nope, Omega Red's in the living room. None of his men are in the house, by the way."

I should quickly explain. Whenever I don't use any of my other powers, I use my Thunderbird powers as a default, because of the superhuman durability and the enhanced senses, meaning no one can really take me by surprise anymore.

Piotr steps off the porch, he then charges forward, breaking through the door, and taking part of the wall with him. I follow after him. We see Omega Red, his eyes wide in surprise, guess he didn't see that one coming. Piotr continues his charge and grabs Omega Red by the face and throws him into the fireplace, temporarily trapping him there.

He then reaches down and grabs Omega Red by the leg, he then swings him overhead, smashing him onto the floor. Noticing the others, he throws him up, Shiro and Scott hit the currently airborne Omega Red with their combined blasts, sending him out of the home.

"He's supposed to be dangerous, right?" I ask. Honestly, I'm kinda surprised we did that to him so easily.

Logan smacks me upside my head. "Look at Piotr."

I look to see that he's a little thinner, not by a lot, but it's definitely noticeable. Oh, so that's the death factor in action. Two tentacles come from the hole in the wall and grab Piotr and I by our necks. Immediately I feel my energy drain, and at an alarming rate. How do I counter this? C'mon Nolan, think, think. Aha! I swap to my Wolverine powers. It doesn't protect me completely, but I can feel the life force absorption slow down exponentially.

We are then thrown to the ground, standing over us is an angry Omega Red. "You caught me by surprise," He begins. "I commend you for that. It will not happen again." He raises his arms, tentacles ready to strike down on Piotr and me.

Parts of the wall are launched at Omega Red, courtesy of Jean. He jumps back and slashes his tentacles at the parts, destroying them all. "As I said, not again." He roars and slams his tentacles down, creating a shockwave, Piotr and I jump over it, but the SHIELD agents and his men nearby aren't so lucky, their bodies quickly wither as they shout in pain before dying.

A blast from Shiro rockets towards him, he just lashes a tentacle out, dissipating the fire ball. Shiro growls before taking to the air, he then fires a continuous stream of flame. Omega Red shields himself with an arm, and we see his skin begin to burn. But he quickly lashes out with his other arm, the tentacle wraps around Shiro's leg, he then brings his arm downward, slamming Shiro into the ground.

The ground beneath Omega Red lifts up, due to Jean's telekinesis. Once in the air Scott hits him with a blast, sending him flying. Once Omega Red lands on the ground Jean places the rock above him, she flips it over and drops it.

For a moment everything is quiet, but then the rock begins to rise. Under it we see Omega Red glaring at us, he's holding the rock above his head. He then smirks and turns to a group of SHIELD agents currently locked in combat with his own, he throws the rock.

I run forward and intercept the rock, grabbing it before it could hit the agents. "What up?"

"Um, uh…hi." One of the agents responds.

"How are ya?" I continue.

He gulps. "G-good. Thanks for saving us."

"No problem." I reply. I move forward and spin in place twice before throwing the rock at Omega Red, who is currently dodging attacks from Logan and Piotr. The two are then pulled back by Jean as the rock lands on Omega Red. As he shakes his head I run forward and hit him with a dropkick, sending Omega Red flying into the barn. The building collapses on him.

"How're the SHIELD agents looking?" I ask.

"Not good. Shiro's out also. Logan, Jean, let's help the SHIELD agents. Nolan, Piotr, can you two finish off Omega Red?" Scott asks.

Piotr palms his fist, the sound of clanging metal echoes. "Of course."

I give the three a thumbs up. "You can count on us, guys."

The three run to the other battle, Piotr and I look at each other and nod. "What is the plan?" He asks.

"When we were training Logan taught me about pressure points. If I can get close enough maybe I can hit some of Omega Red's." I ponder.

"How will you get close? His tentacles give him range, and his death effect will no doubt be more draining the closer you are to him." Piotr points out.

He's right. How do I get close without getting hit? Those tentacles of his also allow him to drain my life force if he wants to. Wait, 'without getting hit' I'm an idiot. I swap to my Untouchable powers. "With my current powerset I'm immune to any physical attack he could hit me with, not so sure about his death effect though, maybe I'll get a resistance. Here's the plan, you fight him head to head, try to keep him as distracted as possible, I'll provide support, but I'll mainly go for his pressure points."

"What about his tentacles?" Piotr asks. The debris of the barn begins to rise.

"Seems to me that your steel form is immune to his life absorption, and look at you, you recovered pretty fast for being hit with his death effect not even six minutes ago." I point out. Looking at Piotr I realized that my plan has a chance. It seems as though his powers mainly work on organic targets, right now Piotr isn't exactly organic, meaning Omega Red's special abilities aren't as effective on him anymore.

An angry roar erupts from the barn, wood flying everywhere once Omega Red erupts from the debris. Piotr and I share another nod before running towards Omega Red, who happens to be running at us.

He whips his tentacles towards us, one catches Piotr by the waist, Piotr jumps forward, using the whip to his advantage. The whip heading towards me jerked to the ground due to my current powers, a look of surprise flashes over Omega Red's face. Using that to his advantage Piotr decks him with a punch that sends Omega Red to the ground face first.

I increase my speed and flip over the prone Omega Red, once I land, I kick him in the back of the neck while he's still down, he lets out a noise of pain before lashing out. Piotr jumps back, to recuperate from the death effect. It's weird, but I can feel it slowly encroaching upon me, it seems as though these powers have some defense against him.

Omega Red gets up and attempts to hit me with a haymaker, but his fist goes wide. He growls in annoyance. "Why can't I hit you?" He attempts another haymaker; this one also goes wide.

Piotr claps his hands over Omega Red's head, greatly disorienting the dangerous mutant. Using this to my advantage I hit him in the throat and the sternum, his body begins to lock up. His left tentacle snakes around Piotr's leg, once it wraps around tightly it whips out, sending the metallic mutant flying away, into one of the SHIELD vehicles. How strong is this guy?

He turns around and places his tentacles in the ground, shortly after the ground beneath me shakes. It then erupts, sending me flying into the debris of the barn house, once I hit the ground, I feel the air leave my lungs and writhe around due to the pain my back is going through.

Omega Red chuckles as he stalks towards me. "Ah, direct attacks won't work, but indirect will." A SHIELD vehicle comes flying from out of nowhere, smacking into Omega Red, both of them go a considerable distance.

Piotr stands over me and offers me a hand. "Agent Coulson gave me this."

In his other hand I see a power dampening collar. "Nice. Same plan, this time I'll get the collar around him," I swap to my Shadowcat powers as I remember something else. "We gotta do something about his tentacles. Jean!" I call out.

After a moment Jean lands next to us. "What's up?"

"We're gonna get this around Omega Red's neck, problem is, we need to do something about his tentacles, think you can help?" I ask.

Jean smirks. "I know I can help." Her eyes glow purple as she telekinetically deflects the SHIELD vehicle Omega Red threw at us.

Once he nears Jean reaches out, his tentacles wrap around his own body, making him look like some red and silver burrito. A blast from Scott and Shiro then come from out of nowhere and hit him, sending him into the ground. Slowly getting up he immediately gets slashed in the face by Logan's claws. Piotr rushes forward, picks him up, and slams him on to the ground. I then phase through Piotr and place the collar around his neck.

"You lose." I mock.

I step back, the remaining SHIELD agents, Coulson, Black Widow, and us X-Men stand over a growling Omega Red, who's also frothing at the mouth. That's gross. Logan steps forward. "Look at you, Arkady. What the hell happened?" He smirks.

"I have nothing to say to you traitor." Omega Red hisses.

Logan raises an eyebrow. "Traitor? The hell are you talkin' about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about! Ever since you left Weapon-" Omega Red lets out a loud scream of pain. He then goes limp.

Jean scans his mind. "Something shut down his mental functions, it was done remotely."

"Can you fix him? There are some questions we need to ask him." Coulson wonders.

"I'd need a couple of weeks to fix this damage. Hell, maybe even a month. Sorry." Jean replies.

Coulson sighs as he orders four of his men to pick up Omega Red's body. He then looks at the wrecked vehicle then looks at Piotr. "Do you have any idea how much those things cost?"

Piotr shrugs as he smiles bashfully. "…No?"

He shakes his head as he walks to follows his men. "Fury's gonna kill me." He mutters.

"So, you find anything?" I ask Black Widow.

"Nyet, there was nothing. Seems as though he was here only because it was closest," Black Widow informs us. Something in her pocket beeps. She pulls it out to reveal a white card, a black stripe with red outlines in the center on the front, on the left side of the card is a glowing blue A, which is where the sound is coming from, on the right is her picture. "I must go, Avengers business. See you when I see you."

"Hey, Logan," Scott begins. Said mutant finally looks away from the vehicle Omega Red is in to look at Scott. "Do you know anything about what Omega Red was saying?"

Logan sighs deeply as he heads towards the convoy. "No."

Not knowing what to say we follow him.

* * *

As we near the Rasputin farm we see some unconscious bodies and destroyed vehicles. As soon as the convoy stops Piotr rushes out. "Illyana! Mama! Papa!"

Illyana gets out of Kitty's arms and runs to her brother. "Piotr!" He engulfs her in a big hug. Illyana then leans back, an excited look in her eyes. "You should have seen it! First these bad men came, then Mr. Bobby was all like 'Stay inside.' And then there was explosions! Boom! BANG!"

We all smile and laugh as she excitedly tells the story of what happened here. "AndthenKittyandRoguepunchedhimtoJubileeshethenhithimwith-"

"Okay! Okay, please, Snowflake, slow down." Piotr chuckles as he puts his sister down.

I walk up to Kitty. "You two were looking pretty friendly."

Kitty smiles as Illyana mimics some of Remy's movements. "She's a cute kid, smart too."

"We all know how you love your smart people." I say.

After things calm down for a bit the SHIELD agents all leave, but before they do Bobby yells out "GEORGE!" Coulson glares at the two of us as we snicker before a small smile can be seen on his lips. He turns around and waves a goodbye.

Jean looks at the two of us. "What's George gotta do with Coulson?"

Bobby and I share a mischievous smirk. "Sorry Jean, inside joke." Bobby says.

Jean aggressively rubs both of our heads. "C'mon, Piotr's parents want to give us dinner before we leave."

For the next couple of hours, we help prepare and then eat dinner. Now we're outside of the _Blackbird, _patiently waiting as Piotr says goodbye to his family. "And remember to call us whenever you can, and to visit also."

"Of course, Mama." Piotr replies.

"If you have any questions be sure to ask your friends, they are there to help you." His father says.

"Yes, Papa." Piotr says.

"Remember to buy me a teddy bear!" Illyana chimes in.

"Of course. I will send it as soon as I can." Piotr smiles.

The family then has one more group hug before Piotr walks up the ramp. We all wave goodbye as the ramp raises up. Piotr sighs deeply before reaching into one of his bags, pulling out a sketchbook and some pencils.

"You draw?" Kitty asks.

"Yes. It helps calm me down and helps me temper my strength." Piotr replies.

"That's hot." Kitty bluntly says.

Piotr blushes deeply and sputters, not knowing what to say. Jubilee just laughs. "Watch out, Nolan, you've got a rival." She says in a singsong voice.

I groan and sink into my chair, ignoring the jokes from Remy, Jubilee, Rogue, and Bobby. Can't we be in Germany already?

* * *

**Later that night**

It was midnight, and Illyana couldn't sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she would see that place, and the voices would be the only thing she would hear. Tonight, it was worse, Illyana would attribute this new intensity to Piotr's going away, he was a calming factor for her this entire time, and without him the dreams just got worse.

Eventually Illyana screamed, waking her parents in the process. They ran to her room. "Snowflake? What's wrong?"

"No, no, no! Get away! Go! Leave. Me. ALONE!"

A portal opened beneath Illyana and her parents, the three fell into it.

The Rasputin home is now empty.

* * *

**Aaaand there's that ending for ya. Also, she won't be the only New Mutant introduced here, we'll meet the other one at the end of this arc. I really don't have much to say right now, other than this. This coming Saturday I'm finally going to post my DC story **_**The Vitruvian Man**_**! You can find it either through my profile or in the Justice League section. **

**By the way, sorry Black Widow didn't do much, that'll be changed in future chapters.**

**Thank you for reading, please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next week.**


	20. German Mutations are Ze Best in Ze Wurld

**We're nearing the end! Two more chapters then we hit the Brotherhood Arc! When writing this chapter, on Feb. 6****th****, Nightcrawler was trending on Twitter. So, I thought 'What better time to start this chapter than now?' and here we are. And we've hit another landmark, chapter 20! Here's to another countless chapters!**

**One quick thing I'd like to add, this chapter's title is a reference, hell pretty much every title after the Sinister Arc has been a reference to something. By the way, my DC story **_**The Vitruvian Man**_** is now online! Go check it out. You can find it in the Justice League category. **

**That's enough from me. On with the story!**

* * *

**German Mutations are Ze Best in Ze Wurld**

"Alright everyone," Scott begins the landing process. "We are now nearing Germany. There will be another car waiting for us, it'll take us to the hotel. From there we can properly coordinate what to do about Kurt Wagner."

"Hey, Nolan, I've been wondering about something for a while now." Bobby says.

I turn to him as the _Blackbird _touches ground. "What's up?"

"You've run into Quicksilver a couple of times, right? So, wouldn't you have his powers now?" Bobby asks.

I sigh in annoyance. "No, I don't. I think it's because I haven't seen him go from stationary to super speed. Every time I've seen Quicksilver it's when he's running, meaning I don't really get a good look at him."

Bobby rubs his chin and nods, humming. "Makes sense, I guess," We all get up as the ramp lowers, we then head to the car. "Man, how big are these cars? And how is Xavier finding all of them?"

"They're custom made. That's why they work so well with Forge's hologram system." Jean explains.

"How much money does the Professor have?" Piotr asks in awe.

I shrug. "Don't know. Learned to stop questioning it. Well, off to the hotel for us."

* * *

We end up at a five-star hotel, while waiting in a private room, specifically rented out for us, Logan is reading a newspaper. "Wow, you're reading a newspaper. How old are you, dude?" Jubilee asks.

"A little over a hundred." Logan answers nonchalantly.

The others stare at him in shock. "Oh, right. Logan's healing factor gives him an extended lifespan. Thanks to Forge (One of our teammates) we were able to find out that he's about 132 to 129 years old." Scott says.

"So, you were born between 1882 and 1885 then?" Kitty asks.

"Would seem so," He turns the page and hums. "Slim, this Kurt kid was a part of a circus, right?"

"Yeah, is there something about the circus he's with?"

Logan places the newspaper down on the table. "Herr Getmann's Travelling Menagerie is coming to Berlin next week. They're really promoting the kid."

Bobby picks up the newspaper. "You got that right. 'Come! See the Amazing Nightcrawler in action! You don't want to miss it!' So, we gonna go to the circus?"

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm feeling a little tired, what with these back to back battles we've been having, I guess Scott notices it too. "Yeah, thankfully it's coming along in a week. Let's take a much-needed break, yeah guys?"

Everyone but Shiro, Piotr, and Logan cheer, well, Logan sighs in relief. "Finally," He mutters. "I'm headed to a bar, don't wait for me."

Shiro gets up. "I will go with you." Logan says nothing as Shiro follows him out of the hotel.

"I've never travelled this far from home. I will be travelling, hopefully the sights can give me insight on my art." Piotr gets up and leaves.

"What time is it?" Jubilee asks.

"It's almost five," Jean turns to Scott. "So, got anything planned, handsome?"

Scott smirks as he grabs Jean by the waist. "I can think of something," Scott turns to me. "Nolan, you're in charge, make sure these guys don't cause an international incident."

I give the two of them a salute. "You can count on me. Enjoy your date you two."

Scott gives me a pat on the shoulder as the two of them leave.

Bobby pouts as he folds his arms, he glares at me. "'YoU cAn CoUNt on mE'," He mocks. "Why are you in charge? I've been on the team longer than you have."  
I give him a deadpan stare. "Bobby, I'm more mature than you are."

The others sound their agreement. Bobby's angry look quickly becomes a smile. "You aren't wrong about that one. So, what do we do now, oh fearless leader?"

My plan's a simple one. "Let's go enjoy Germany! If you guys want to you can go off in your own little groups, or we could all stick together, it's your choice, really. Just, don't start an international incident, yeah?"

"Don't worry mon ami, you can count on us." Remy reassures.

"Remy's right, we ain't gonna cause any problems," Rogue pointedly looks at Jubilee and Bobby. "These two on the other hand…"

"Hey! We happen to take offense to that." Jubilee says indignantly.

Rogue laughs. "Ah'm just messin' with the two of you. C'mon, let's go explore Germany."

Our first stop was a restaurant, because according to Bobby and Jubilee: 'Hotel food just ain't enough to really get a feel of the place'. So, our group ends up at a nice little restaurant, our food had just arrived once Remy began a conversation.

"Remy's been wondering about something for a while now: will we get costumes?" He asks.

"They're not costumes, they're suits." I correct.

"Eh, more like lightweight but still effective armor, all reverse engineered from Nolan's." Bobby adds.

"Do we get to choose what we want to wear?" Kitty asks.

Bobby nods. "Yeah, lucky you. When the X-Men first began the five of us had to wear a uniform, we got our individualized suits around the time the others joined the team."

"How'd you get your suit, Nol?" Kitty turns to me.

I sigh deeply. "My Grandfather gave it to me. I mean, to be completely honest, it's been working so far, why change, y'know?"

"Got that right," Jubilee lets out a squeal of excitement as she thinks about her suit. "Oooh, I know exactly what my suit's gonna look like!" She stops.

We just stare at her, waiting for her to continue. She doesn't, instead she looks at us expectantly. Kitty sighs. "What's your suit gonna look like, Jubilee?"

"Thank you for asking, Kitty! Picture this: The top will be pink with black sides, a yellow X in the center of my chest. I'll have pink shoulders as well with black sleeves, and pink gloves. The pants will be blue, like my jeans, with black boots that go up to my knees. I'll wear my glasses 'cause they're a part of me at this point, as well as my jacket," She pauses and looks up. "Awesome, right?"

Remy gives her an impressed look. "That doesn't sound half bad," He leans back and looks up as well. "Got it. It'll be a purple top, wit' some silver designs here and dere. The pants will be completely black, a red belt buckle with the black X. Remy'll have silver boots and wear his trench coat over it. It's a part of him, too. And Remy'll have the same cowl as Scott and Jean."

Rogue taps her chin as she rests her elbows on the table. "Yellow on the inside with green on the outside all throughout. Ah'll have knee high yellow boots and a green bandana," She looks at the shoulders of her bomber jacket. "Maybe Ah could get the team symbol stitched onto here and wear this as a part of mah costume, too."

We all turn to Kitty. "I do like the black and yellow, not gonna lie. Yellow insides and black outsides, maybe the inner thighs could be yellow too, with some golden knee-high boots. I could have yellow shoulders and gloves, with a black X on the chest." She explains.

Jubilee then turns to me and Bobby, the rest following suit. "What?" I question. "We already have suits, no need to think of dream ones."

"Well yeah, but your suits aren't as well known as Logan's, or Scott's." Jubilee counters.

Bobby and I look at each other. "Alright," I sigh. "My suit's mainly black, with an orange belt that stops at the center, an orange circle broken up so that the black of my suit makes an X, two X's on my shoulders, and orange knuckles. Happy?"

Bobby gets right into it. "My suit's black pretty much all the way up to the chest, once there it becomes blue, but there's still a black X among the blue. It's sleeveless and I have arm bracers. Guess icing up really does make it hard to see my costume, huh?"

"Ya think?" Jubilee says.

Bobby lightly punches her in the shoulder.

Once we finish our food Rogue stretches. "Anyone know any good places to check out nearby?"

"Well, there's the Brandenburg Gate-" I begin.

"-The Berlin Wall Memorial-" Kitty says.

"-Charlottenburg Palace and Park-" I continue.

"-and the Jewish Museum Berlin. Among others" Kitty finishes. She touches her Star of David necklace fondly as she says this last one.

Jubilee slams her palm into the table, startling us all. "Well, we've all got our missions," We stare at her, confused. "Remy and Rogue can go on their date, you two can go on yours," Kitty and I avoid eye contact. "And Bobby and I will-"

"Go on a date?" The rest of us interrupt. Jubilee and Bobby blush in embarrassment.

"Not so funny when it happens to you, huh, Jubilee?" I say, a large smirk on my face.

"What I was gonna say was that Bobby and I are gonna add some graffiti to the Berlin wall." Jubilee finishes.

My eyes widen. "Woah, no, no, no. No. Remember, no international incidents."

"Come on, Nolan. Pleeease?" She begs. She puts her hands over the lower part of her face and gives me puppy dog eyes.

Must. Resist. I tear my eyes away. "No. That's final."

She deflates and sighs in defeat. "Fine."

Rogue and Remy share a look before getting up. "She is right doe. It's been a minute since chere and Remy have been alone. We'll see you in a bit." Remy gives us a mock salute as Rogue waves goodbye, the two exit the restaurant.

Jubilee gasps as she jumps up in her seat. "Isn't Oktoberfest going on right now?"

"It's tomorrow, actually." Kitty corrects.

"You aren't going, you're underage." I counter.

Jubilee groans. "C'mon, Nolan, let me have some fun."

"When you're older, go ahead, right now I'd much rather we don't get separated in a giant crowd in a foreign place. Especially with the Brotherhood out there." I tell her.

She sighs again, but this time I can see in her eyes that she understands my position. "Fine," She relents. "But next time we come here I get to do whatever I want. Got it?"

I chuckle. "Yeah, got it."

She gets up. "C'mon Bobby, let's go."

Bobby looks at her incredulously. "Why me?"

"Because if I want to go alone Nolan's gonna be like, 'No way, you gotta have a partner'." She deepens her voice as she mocks me. I don't sound like that. Do I? Great, now I'm self-conscious about my voice, that'll take a while to get over.

Bobby looks at me. I just smirk. He sighs and gets up. The two leave the restaurant, leaving Kitty and I alone. "I would've left her alone," I say. I pull out my phone, specially made by Forge. I then go to the map, which shows the location of our current travelling companions. "This would've told me where she is the entire time."

"What if she were kidnapped?" Kitty asks.

"If the phone doesn't sense the body heat of the owner for an extended period of time it sends out an automated distress signal. Before we go to sleep, we just tell the phone, avoids a lot of trouble when we do that." I answer.

Kitty pulls something out of her bag. Wait, is that? Holy shit, it is. "Uh, Kit? Did you really take that from Japan? Even after everything Shingen did?" I ask.

"Don't worry about it. My phasing tends to mess with electronics, don't know why. Also, I'm pretty good with computers," She says. She opens the laptop and logs on, after doing whatever she opens a video calling app. Eventually her parents pick up. "Hey Mom and Dad!"

"Kitten! How are you." Her mom replies.

Kitty shrugs. "Oh, you know, just kicking butt all over the world."

Her dad raises an eyebrow in intrigue. "Really now? And where have you been?"

Kitty holds up a finger. "California, Japan, Russia. We're in Germany right now, eventually we're going to London, then Ireland, then we're headed back to New York."

Her dad lets out a hum. "Impressive," He then notices me. "Nolan, how are you?"  
"I'm fine, Mr. Pryde." I smile and nod.

A sound can be heard on the other end of the call, Kitty's mom looks down then looks back up, an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry, but we have an important meeting soon. Thank you for calling, Kitten. I love you."

"I love you guys too. Bye." Kitty and I wave.

"Keep an eye on her, alright, Nolan?" Her dad says.

I give him a mock salute. "You can count on me sir."

He nods before the call ends. I turn to Kitty. "Now what?"

She thinks for a moment before looking at me. "I've got some ideas."

For the rest of the week the eleven of us take in the sites of Berlin, Germany. Scott and Jean go on a few more dates, Logan begrudgingly becomes our chaperone for a day, Shiro and Piotr begin to bond, and Kitty and I continue to see the sites as well. The others constantly tease us about it.

Eventually the circus finally arrived.

* * *

**The next day**

"Where the hell is my toothbrush?" I ask. We are currently in three rooms, the girls all in one, Shiro, Scott, Piotr, and Bobby in one, Remy, Logan, and I in another.

Remy throws it my way. Looking carefully at the bristles I see they were previously used. "Remy used it, sorry."

I blink before giving him a pointed glare. "Ex-fucking-scuse me? You used my toothbrush? What the hell, man!"

"He said he was sorry, just accept it." Logan says as he places his hat atop his head.

"Would you accept his apology if he used your toothbrush?" I ask.

"No." Logan simply replies.

"Then why should I!?" I shout.

"You can clean it, can't you?" Logan counters.

Oh, right. I tap into Shinji's powers and reverse time around my toothbrush, bringing it back to its pristine, pre-Cajun form. Remy just shrugs as he has a victorious smirk on his face. I flip him off before going into the bathroom.

After a few minutes of brushing my teeth and fixing my hair the three of us exit our hotel room, where we find the girls waiting for us. I stand next to Kitty and Rogue as we wait. "What was that shouting?" Rogue asks.

"Someone," I pointedly glare at Remy. He does the same action from earlier. "Decided to use my toothbrush."

Rogue turns to him. "Gross."

"What can Remy say? It was do or die." Remy says.

"You have a toothbrush!" I whisper-shout.

"Where're Slim and the others, Red?" Logan asks.

Jean looks at the door for a moment, she then turns to Logan. "They're still getting ready. Bobby may have accidentally iced up the bathroom."

The door opens. First comes Piotr and Scott, both looking miffed at the whole thing. Bobby comes out next, a sheepish smile on his face. Shiro comes out last, his hands still glowing from melting the ice in the bathroom. Looking into the room I can see steam rising from the carpet.

"The hell did you do?" I ask.

"He placed an ice bomb in the bathroom. Once Piotr opened the door it blew up, I happened to be nearby. We were trapped for almost half an hour." Scott answers.

"It was great." Bobby immediately shrinks due to the glares directed to him by the three.

Jean just shakes her head as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Let's go, the circus should be here soon."

"Circus! Circus! Circus!" Bobby begins to chant. Jubilee, Remy, and I join in as we exit the hotel.

Outside we see a large crowd heading around the hotel, once going around the building we find the circus. Outside we see people on giant stilts, elephants balancing chairs with people on them, someone juggling fire, and other circus activities.

"The main event's starting in about an hour, meet back here ten minutes before, alright?" Scott calls out.

We all separate and do our own things. Bobby, Jubilee, Remy, and Rogue go to check out the snake whisperer, and considering the world we live in, I wouldn't doubt she could actually talk to the snakes. Jean and Scott go to check out the sword swallower. Logan, Piotr, and Shiro go do…something, not sure what, to be completely honest.

Kitty grabs my arm in an iron grip and drags me through the crowd. "Nolan! Look at that!"

We fit our way through a crowd to find a man eating sticks of fire, he then breaths out large balls of flame. To his left we see his twin eating blocks of dry ice, he then breaths out a gout of ice.

Kitty leans towards me as they toss a stick to each other, repeating the process. "So, actual powers or…"

I look at the two with a critical eye. "Not powers. Has to be skill. One hell of a skill, too. I'm impressed."

"Hey, there's Logan, Shiro, and Piotr." Kitty points to the group.

We go to them to find them watching the person on the chair balance on one leg on the trunk of an elephant. Wish I could do that. I turn to see Piotr staring in awe at the display. "I take it you like this one?"

Piotr shakes his head before looking at me, he smiles as he rubs the back of his head. "Da. The skill and care needed for something of this magnitude is…awe inspiring. And to see an elephant doing this perfectly is amazing," He pulls out his sketchbook and a pencil. "I know what my next art piece will be."

I turn to Shiro. "What do you think?"  
For a moment he's quiet. "It's okay. I have seen more impressive though."

Kitty leans close to me. "He really doesn't talk much."

"You got that right," I smell a smell I love to smell. "Popcorn. C'mon, Kitty, let's leave the Boring Patrol behind."

Kitty pumps her fists and jumps around a bit. "Let's fucking go! Popcorn! Popcorn!"

"Forgot how much you loved popcorn," I chuckle. In the distance I can see some of the people of the circus coming in from the back. "Main attraction's here."

"Really?" She jumps around, trying to look over the crowd. She fails miserably. She turns to me and gives me puppy dog eyes. Dammit, why are those so damn effective? Sighing, I pick her up, once she sees the main attraction, she pats me on the shoulder, telling me to put her down. "Thanks, Nol."

"So, did you see him?" I ask.

"Yeah, he looks cool, and that suit of his works great." She replies.

"It does. C'mon, popcorn, remember?" I continue our little quest, Kitty following close behind.

The two of us get our own bags of popcorn. As we continue around the outside, we run into the others every now and again, we see Bobby getting a caricature painting done, Jubilee with an apple on her head, one of the circus people throwing axes at the apple perfectly. Eventually we see the time, we head to the center, where everyone else is waiting.

"Well, let's go check out the show." Scott hands us all our tickets.

Once she gets hers Jubilee looks at the massive line, which is still growing. "Uh, Scott, it's gonna take a while for us to get in."

"Look at your ticket."

We look to see special VIP access on our tickets. Rogue and I fist bump. We enter the tent and find ourselves in a special area, with a full view of the entire circus, oooooh this is dope as fuck.

As we take our seats the lights dim, as we sit in near total darkness a spotlight activates, illuminating a middle-aged man standing in the center of the circus. He has a tall, black top hat on, as well as polished black shoes. He wears white dress pants and has a red suit jacket on, with golden trimming. He has a thick black mustache and is holding a brown cane with a golden head.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls of all ages! Welcome, to Herr Getmann's Travelling Menagerie! I am Herr Max Getmann, and I welcome you! Today, you will see feats of nigh impossibility, completed! Sword jugglers, mages, toad men, and teleporters, oh my! Please, enjoy ze show!"

Firework cannons go off, illuminating everything. From the back of the tent comes three elephants, with people balancing on the chairs on their trunks, a lion tamer and a tiger tamer come rushing out with meat on sticks, their animals doing tricks as they follow them. A group of three follow, a man with a hint of a stubble, he reminds me of a pirate, honestly. A blue loose shirt and khaki pants, a white do-rag over his hair. To his left is an attractive girl with light brown hair, she wears red pants, she also has a red shirt with white designs on it and is wearing a blue cape. In between them is an older woman who shares similarities between the two, probably their mother, her hair is dark like the young man's while her face looks like the young woman's. She wears a white dress with a golden corset, and golden necklaces all over her neck, as well as a golden headpiece.

After them comes a short guy, instead of running out or walking out of the back like everyone else he leaps out, like a frog. His skin's green and he has a bowl cut. He wears mainly orange, while everything from the chest up is blue, as well as the shoulders.

The next person's appearance causes everyone to cheer wildly, pretty sure my eardrums just ruptured from the volume of the cheering. Doing acrobatic flips comes Kurt Wagner, otherwise known as the Amazing Nightcrawler. He has white boots with a red line on top of the boots, his pants and the sides of the upper half of his costume are black, the center of his costume is a vibrant red, and the shoulders extend out, like Vegeta's armor during the Saiyan Saga. The gloves are like his boots, white with a red line separating the black sleeves and the white gloves. Oh, right, he also has three toes each-two in front and one on the back-and three fingers. He also has a long blue tail coming from out of his back, which brings me to his most important feature, he has fine dark blue fur instead of skin, and his eyes are pure yellow.

"He's popular, isn't he?" Jean rhetorically questions.

"The green boy doesn't like it." Logan chimes in.

True enough, Green Dude has an angry look on his face. Guess he's jealous of Kurt's popularity. The look of anger increases once Kurt and the girl wearing red bow, their arms around each other. Rival in love, scandalous.

A large show is first, using all of the people here. The men on the chairs jump between each other and sit on each other's chairs, the dude in blue juggles swords and such, he does some acrobatic flips as well, while juggling the swords. The two women do some insane magic tricks, such as manipulating the fireworks or creating constructs of lions and tigers. The lion and tiger tamers have their beasts running through obstacle courses.

Then come the next two. The green guy leaps around, his tongue shoots out of his mouth and grabs a hold of some of the sword guys swords. But then Kurt does some acrobatic flips, he then points to an empty seat amongst the crowd, a spotlight goes to the seat. Two puffs of smoke later we see Kurt sitting amongst the crowd, everyone else goes wild at that display.

"Looks like a teleporter." Logan comments.

The people of the circus get in a final position, with a spot open. Another two bursts of smoke later and Kurt is among them, completing the opening show. The crowd gets up in a standing ovation.

"Say hello to our beast tamers, Heinrich and Franz Muller! Our acrobats, Abraham, Adalia, and Adal! Our family of swords und magic, Margali Szardos, and her children Jimaine and Stephan! Mortimer Toynbee, The Terrible Toad! And last but not least, Kurt Vagner! THE AMAZING NIGHTCRAWLER!" Getmann holds his arms out, an explosion goes off.

Logan and I leap forward, he brings out his claws as he does. The others look at us confused. "Guys?"

"That wasn't the fireworks." I say.

The lights go out, bringing us into almost complete darkness. Screams can be heard as well as combat. As we jump out of our booth Shiro and Jubilee activate their powers, giving us light. We see most of the circus people knocked out, the only ones up are Kurt, Toad, and the Szardos family.

Across from them we see a group of people, all of them look to be average, well, except for the Friends of Humanity armbands on their arms. Yay. Among their numbers stands their leader, Graydon Creed. The hell's he doing here?

"Max Getmann, you've been known for harboring mutant trash amongst your numbers," He holds his hand out. "Don't be stupid, give the two of them to us and we won't harm anyone else."

Oh, that's why he's here.

Getmann defiantly stands in front of the two. "No. I do not take kindly to threats, against me or my people. Leave."

Creed smirks as he raises his hand, the crowd parts to show a young woman held hostage by the FOH. Getmann's defiant look quickly gives way to fear. "No! Please! Don't hurt her, she's just a girl."

"You know what I want."

Getmann turns around and looks at the two, a shadow falls over his face. He then steps aside, shocking them. Creed nods to the person holding the woman hostage, he throws her at Getmann.

Creed then turns to the two and smirks as he and his group slowly move in on the two. Before they could take another step, an earthquake appears form out of nowhere, Kitty and I share an annoyed look.

From the same hole the FOH came from comes Mystique, followed closely behind by Lance. Now he's wearing a black suit, and he has a silver chest piece and shoulder pads, as well as silver gloves that reach up to his elbows and a dome helmet over the top half of his head.

A blue and silver blur runs through the FOH, taking out a good amount of them. Once it stops, I finally get a good look at Quicksilver. He has silver hair, his suit is primarily blue, with silver boots and gloves and a silver belt that connects to a similarly colored lighting bolt that goes from his left shoulder to the right side of his belt.

Quicksilver smirks at an annoyed Creed before he looks at us. "Look who's here: The X-Men. Who're your new friends? Doesn't matter."

He takes off running. I smirk and do the same, shoulder checking him while we run at each other in high speed. He skids on the ground a fair distance, once he stops, he looks at me in shock. "That's what you get for letting me get a good look at you, asshole." I taunt.

A gunshot goes off. Everything slows down enough for me to see a bullet fired towards me by one of the FOH, I walk towards it, pick it up, and toss it to the side. Quicksilver punches me in the face.

I quickly recover and hit him in the gut with my knee, followed by an uppercut that sends him flying towards Bobby. Once we exit our little speed zone Bobby quickly puts up an ice wall, which Quicksilver slams into headfirst. Shiro fires just over my shoulders, turning around I see two FOH dudes laying on the ground.

Eventually a fight breaks out between the three groups. Scott makes his way to me, even with Lance constantly using his powers. "Nolan, get to Kurt and…Mortimer? Yeah, Mortimer. Get to the two of them and help get the circus people out."

I swap to my Storm powers and fly, seeing as superspeed and an unreliably ground isn't a good match. "Hey! I can get the rest of them outta here, you two help get them to me, yeah?"

They both get out of their shocked positions and look at me. Kurt's face becomes serious before he starts teleporting, bringing the people to me. The smell of his teleporting is horrible, kind of regretting this plan. Mortimer, on the other hand, glares at a currently escaping Getmann. Before I could say anything, he leaps away, most likely to get revenge.

Goddammit. Jean throws some rocks in his way thankfully, but they get destroyed by some bombs thrown by Mystique. She then dodges a punch from Creed himself. She smirks victoriously as his angry look becomes even angrier. Wonder if there's a history between those two.

Kurt's teleporting catches Creed's attention, so while he's getting his friends Creed aims his gun at Kurt, hoping to hit him. Before I could do anything, Mystique acts first, and ferociously. She hits the gun away, the stray shot bouncing off of Piotr, and then hits Creed in the chest with her palm, winding him. As he stumbles away, she kicks him in the leg, once he's down she headbutts him.

A scream grabs my attention, turning to my left I see Mortimer standing over Getmann and the woman, a sword held high, ready to strike Getmann down. Did I just sound like Palpatine? Eh, whatever. A brown and green blur slams into him, once it stops, I see Rogue. When'd she get Quicksilver's powers? Eh, works for us.

"Hey! Asshole!" A fist connects with the side of my beautiful face, again.

Shaking my head, I look up to see Lance glaring down at me. He cracks his fists. "I've got a bone to pick with you."

"Who the hell says that anymore?" I ask. He glares at me. What? It's a genuine question.

I punch him in the head, yeah, wasn't my brightest moment, once my fist connects with his helmet I lurch back in pain, holding my fist and blowing on it. Lance grabs me by the back of my shirt and the collar and hefts me up. "Man, you are light!"

He throws me towards some of the few FOH guys left. I create a gust of wind that blows them back and keeps me aloft, I then fly towards him at high speeds, he plants his feet down and prepares for me. I smirk as I raise my right arm up before swinging it down, hitting him with a lightning bolt.

Surprisingly enough, he stays standing, not for long though. His helmet phases through his head, turning around he sees Kitty standing behind him. She punches him in the face, oooooh, sounds like she broke his nose, especially considering the blood that's everywhere now.

A pellet drops between the two of us. One bright flash of light later and everyone on the Brotherhood side of things are gone, as well as Mortimer. Yay. Wait a minute. "Shiro, how'd she get past you?"

I turn around to see him currently supported by Piotr, a streak of blood running down his face. "Oh, shit, you okay man?"

He holds a hand up. "It is fine, thank you for your concern," He looks around at the FOH. "Now what?"

"Let me come vith you."

We all turn to see Kurt standing across from us, the Szardos family-who had yet to be taken out of the battle zone-standing with him. The girl, Jimaine, softly places her hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure, Kurt?"

"You didn't see it, Jimaine, Getmann vas villing to sell Mortimer and I out, even with the X-Men here, vho easily could've saved his daughter. I don't vant to vork for a man like zat again." Kurt says.

"Funny thing: We actually came here hoping you'd join us. I guess now you've just gotta say your goodbyes and grab your things, then we can go." Scott replies.

"Zat soon?" Stephan asks.

"We're kind of on a timetable here," Jean chimes in. "Don't worry though! You can visit whenever you want, just be sure to call us so we can pay for the plane tickets, hotel, and all that other good stuff."

The mother, Margali, grabs Kurt by the shoulders and turns him around to face her. "Are you sure about zis, Kurt?"

Kurt nods. "Ja."

Margali backs up, her hands glow green as she does some motions, eventually some suitcases appear from a magic circle on the ground. "Go. Enjoy your new life, and be sure to call us, okay?"

She and Kurt hug. "Of course."

Jimaine steps forward and kisses him on the cheek. It doesn't show, what with his deep blue fur and all, but we can tell he's blushing. "You'd better have fun, got it?" Kurt just nods.

Next up is her brother, the two have a bro hug. They just look at each other before nodding, Stephan's mother and sister just roll their eyes.

Kurt turns to us. "Vell, let's go."

"We gotta go to the hotel first, to get our stuff, ya know?" Jubilee says.

Margali does the same thing, our luggage all appears before us. "Magic is so fucking cool." Bobby whispers in awe.

"Yeah." I whisper as well. Bobby then turns to me; I know exactly what he's gonna ask. I feel my powers shift, turning to my right I begin to think about fire, my hands glow with a red energy, followed quickly by a bolt of magical fire.

"DUDE!" Bobby and I shout.

Margali looks at the two of us as we excitedly jump around, joined by Jubilee and Remy. She then turns to Scott. "You live in New York, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Look for Stephen Strange, he can help your friend learn more about his magic." She says.

"Thank you." Scott nods his head.

Margali does the same. "Alright! All of you, get together."

Once we do her hands glow again, a magic circle appears below us, as it rises, we feel ourselves slowly disappear from the circus. Before the circle completely floats over us, we wave goodbye to the Szardos family, eventually we return to the airport.

Teleporting's weird, my skin feels tingly. Looks like Kitty's worse off then all of us, she falls to her knees and almost pukes, if the noises she's making are of any indication. "Are you okay, Katya?" Piotr asks.

'Katya'? The hell is that? Whatever, I'm not jealous. You can't prove anything!

_"Suuure you aren't." _Jean cheekily says telepathically.

Jean! Get out! I feel her presence leave my mind.

"Yeah, I'm fine. No, I'm not. Ugh, maybe. I don't know." Kitty gets up with Piotr's help.

No. Not jealous at all. I feel Jean's presence in my mind. Leave. The presence leaves.

"Maybe it's your powers?" I speculate. Everyone looks at me. "I mean, think about it: your molecules work differently than anyone else's, so maybe by moving your molecules from one place to another outside of your control your body has a violent reaction."

"Is there a way to stop it?" Kitty wonders.

"Best guess? Keep teleporting until it doesn't happen anymore." I offer.

Kitty groans as she weakly punches me in the shoulder. "Thanks for the diagnosis, Dr. Belmont."

"Your last name is Belmont?" Kurt asks.

Shit, right. We never got to introduce ourselves. "Name's Nolan Belmont. And my patient here is Katherine Pryde, she goes by Kitty."

"My name is Jean Grey."

"Name's Bobby, I'm the cool guy."

We groan at his pun. "Ignore him, the name's Anna Marie, call me Rogue. Oh, and don't touch, trust me."

Kurt has a questioning look on his face. Jubilee then gets into his face. "Names Jubilee. You've got really soft fur." She runs her hands across his face.

Noticing his immense discomfort Logan picks up Jubilee, ignoring her protests. "Logan."

"Yoshida Shiro."

"Piotr Rasputin."

"Name's Remy LeBeau, don't forget it."

"And I'm Scott Summers, the leader of the X-Men." Scott offers his hand to shake.

"Kurt. Kurt Vagner." He introduces himself formally.

"Vagner?" Jubilee questions.

"No, Vagner." Kurt corrects.

"That's what I said." Jubilee says, tiling her head in confusion.

"No, you said 'Vagner' not 'Vagner'." Kurt explains.

"They're the same thing." Jubilee further tilts her head.

"Without a German accent his name's 'Wagner', with one it's 'Vagner'." I interrupt. Don't want this conversation to continue longer than it should.

Guess Scott's a telepath too. "C'mon you guys, two more stops."

Hell yeah, next stop London…London! Hah! I get to go home! Man, it's been a while since I've been there. Man, I can't wait.

* * *

**Shortly after the battle**

"W-why did you let me come with you?" Mortimer asks on edge.

Mystique turns to him and pats him on the head. "Because, you show a strength that the X-Men would only waste," Now, Mortimer knows nothing about Mystique, but he did know that she was a serious, intense person, so seeing the look of uncertainty and fear that crossed across her face was a great surprise. "The blue boy, how is he?"

Mortimer looks at her confused. "Kurt? Why do you care? He's nothing but a spot hogging shit. Don't see what Jimaine sees in him."

Mystique's hand, which happens to be atop his head, tightly grasps his hair. Mortimer shouts in pain and fear as Mystique jerks his head back, exposing his neck, she then places a blade on it, Mortimer stops moving entirely.

"What are his powers? Was he treated well? How skilled is he? Who is Jimaine?" She interrogates.

Due to the situation and the way she asked the questions, professional followed by personal, Mortimer didn't really look too deeply into the personal questions. "H-h-he can teleport! A-and yeah! Before today he was Getmann's money maker. He's, uh, he's pretty damn skilled with swords, Stephan taught him a lot-"

"Who's Stephan?" The knife goes in a little deeper, drawing some blood.

"J-Jimaine's older brother! He and Kurt were best buds!"

"And Jimaine?"

"She and Kurt are c-c-close! Maybe they were dating! I don't know!" Mortimer's breathing slowly calms down, slightly impressing Mystique. "Please, let me go." Aaand there goes the respect.

Mystique raises the knife from his throat and throws him forward. Mortimer trips over Quicksilver and Avalanche, waking them up. "Who the hell are you?"

"Toad. The newest member of the Brotherhood." Mystique answers for him.

"What?" They both ask.

"Toad's abilities will have their uses, so he will join." Mystique firmly states.

Quicksilver and Avalanche share a glance before turning to Mortimer, now known as Toad.

Toad began to regret his decision.

* * *

**Nightcrawler's joined the battle! We're nearing the end of the arc and heading into the next! Some quick notes about the timeline of the story: there's gonna be time skips, especially after the Brotherhood arc. See, the Graduation Arc is actually a lot closer than I anticipated and considering the fact that most of these guys are around thirteen-fourteen I realized we gotta skip through time a bit.**

**One thing I'm intimidated about with writing this story is balancing the characters, after all, the X-Men are the biggest superhero team in comics, especially in current years. We'll see as the story goes on.**

**One cool thing I noticed: when the previous chapter was posted the word count was at 113,113, pretty cool, huh? And again, my story **_**The Vitruvian Man**_** is finally up! You can find it in the Justice League section.**

**That's all from me. Please leave constructive criticism and remember to stay awesome! See you next week.**


	21. An Asian Psychic in London

**Here we are with the next chapter and nearing the end of the current arc! Wow, the amount of reviews exploded on Monday alone if I remember correct. From three reviews to ten, thanks guys. So, watched **_**Sonic the Hedgehog **_**on Monday, it was fucking amazing! The easter eggs were great and the post-credits scene definitely shows promise for a sequel. **

**Lemme answer some questions.**

**Juhiko02: Mimic's has all of the powers in a codex, meaning he doesn't lose them, they're always there. And the name Mimic was just something I thought of on the spot, didn't have anything else to think of. Chances are the name may change in the future though, after all, Dick Grayson isn't only Robin. Oh, and his appearance does change, depending on the powers, we'll see more in the future.**

* * *

**An Asian Psychic in London**

"Who are the Friends of Humanity? And who is Graydon Creed?" Piotr asks.

"The Friends of Humanity are a mutant hate group, like the Purifiers but they aren't religious lunatics." I explain.

"And Graydon Creed's their leader," Logan adds. "And he's just like his father, no matter how much he denies it."

"You know his dad?" I ask.

Logan just folds his arms and sinks into his chair. "Bad blood. That's all I'm sayin'."

"Whatever. So, Scotty, we staying at another five-star hotel once we hit London?" Bobby leans forward, resting his arms on the pilot's seat.

"Ask Nolan." Scott replies.

Everyone turns to me. "Thanks to the money from Sinister's company we have a good amount of money. We can stay with my Grandma, I just gotta tell her we're coming." I explain.

"Must be nice having money. Your grandma wouldn't mind if Remy…took a few things, would she?" Remy wiggles his fingers around playfully and has a smirk on his face.

"As long as it isn't too important," I answer. Remy's smirk grows, but I have my own smirk. "But I would."

Taking that cue Rogue not so lightly smacks his hands down.

Meanwhile, Kurt is currently is looking through the holographic system in awe, which reminds me of something. I turn my chair around and lean towards Logan, he raises his hat slightly once he notices my actions. "What is it, Shifty?"

"When Creed was going to shoot Kurt, Mystique went ballistic on him. And I've noticed some similarities: pure yellow eyes, blue skin…kind of. Know what I mean?" I whisper.

"I do. Can't even tell if they have the same scent. Mystique's scent isn't solid, it's hard to pin down, so I can't be certain if she's his mom or not," He leans back, "Knowing our line of work the truth'll come to light, we just have to wait." Logan puts his hat over his eyes again.

Well, guess that mystery won't be solved until later, though I'm pretty sure I'm right. Eventually we get the familiar message that we're landing, the butterflies in my stomach double. It feels like forever since I've been here, can't wait to see Grandma, ooh, maybe I can use our time here to call Mom and Dad.

"Guys, I've scanned the private airport where the _Blackbird's _gonna land." Jean begins.

"And?" Scott asks.

"Elizabeth's there waiting for us."

"Oh, for fucks sake! Is it too much for me to just visit my Grandma?" I shout in anger.

"C'mon Nol," Kitty says, placing a calming hand over my own. "Shingen waited for us at the airport, we still stayed for a day there. And Piotr and his dad met us at the landing spot, we still stayed for a day."

"You aren't wrong about that. Let's see how this goes then." I grumble.

Bobby turns around and taps his head. I create a link between the two of us. _"Jean's getting pretty powerful with her telepathy pretty fast, huh?"_

"_You've got that right. Hell, I've had it longer than she has, and she's surpassed me." _I reply.

"_Professor tell you anything?" _Bobby asks.

"_Nothing. I'll be sure to ask him next time I can." _I reply.

"_You haven't contacted him this entire time?" _Bobby questions.

"_Haven't been able to, don't know why. Hope it's nothing."_ I answer.

"_Same here. Talk to you later." _Bobby leaves the link.

The ramp to the _Blackbird _lowers, at the end of it we see an attractive Asian woman, around Scott and Jean's age, with purple hair, wearing grey skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a purple jacket over it, waiting for us. "You're the X-Men, aren't you? My name's Elizabeth Braddock, you can call me Betsy, I need your help."

Kurt pulls up her file and shows us her picture. In it she's a Caucasian woman with light purple hair. "She looks nothing like ze picture." Kurt warns.

"How do we know you're the real deal?" Scott asks.

For a moment she has a look of surprise on her face, it quickly morphs into annoyance. We feel her presence attempt to enter our minds. Well, she enters the minds of the others, me and Jean have strong defenses, but we still have to fight back. She's powerful.

"She's the real deal." Scott affirms.

"How can you tell?" Piotr questions.

"When you've known telepaths as long as I have, you tend to know what's the truth and what isn't," Scott turns to her. "What do you need help with?"

She looks around, as if we're currently being watched. "Not here. Do you have a place we can stay at?"

Hell, fucking yes. I step forward. "I've got a-"

"Nevermind, we can go to my safehouse. Follow me." She interrupts.

What?

Hold the fuck up. No. C'mon universe, do me a solid, yeah?

An explosion sounds off in the distance, we all look to see a pillar of black smoke in the distance. "Shit. That's probably my safehouse."

Universe, I love you!  
Jean not so lightly elbows me in the ribs, bringing me back to the moment. "If that really is your safehouse then don't worry, I've got a place we can stay at."

Betsy studies me with a critical eye before relenting. "Let's confirm if it really is, one or two of you can come with me."

"And if it is?" Bobby questions.

"The rest of you can stay at Nolan's place, I'll send a text regarding Betsy's safehouse. Logan, you're with me." Scott orders.

The three of them get into Betsy's car waiting at the edge of the landing strip. I start walking towards the limo. "Come, friends! My home awaits!"

They all share looks. Piotr then turns to me. "Were you not going to call your grandmother?"

I shrug. "I was. Then I thought, 'Why tell her I'm coming when I can surprise her?' Man, I'm the best grandson ever, am I right, Kit?"

Said girl just makes a so-so motion with her hand.

"Thanks for having my back, I appreciate it. Really," I sarcastically drawl out. I turn around and run to the limo. "Come! We've wasted enough time! Off to the Belmont home!"

"Wait, your grandma's the Belmont? What about your dad?" Bobby asks as he begins to follow me.

My run slows from a walk to stationary. Huh, now that I think about it, why did Dad take Mom's name? Normally she'd take his or keep her own. "I-I actually never questioned it. I'll call them, see if I can't get any answers."

We enter the limo and head towards Grandma's, but my butterflies have dwindled in number. What was Dad's original last name?

* * *

**Scott, Logan, and Betsy**

"You mind telling us who's on your ass?" Logan questions.

Betsy stays silent as she drives out of the private landing strip. "Guess not." Logan mutters.

"I'd rather say it once we're all together. I don't like repeating myself." Betsy replies.

Scott nods. Makes sense, he also prefers to say things when the most people are there, makes repeating less annoying. Scott turns to look out the window as Betsy drives. "So, how far to your safehouse?"

"About fifteen minutes," The sirens of emergency vehicles can be heard approaching. Betsy and everyone else driving pulls to the side for a small fleet of emergency vehicles. Betsy sighs in annoyance. "But it could be longer. Dammit."

Logan and Scott share a glance at Betsy's impatience. "Why do you have a safehouse? I mean, you're a Braddock, don't you guys have a mansion? Why don't you stay there?" Scott questions.

Betsy grimaces as she drives, eventually she sighs and looks at Scott from the corner of her eye. "I have my reasons. Besides, this is personal."

Logan growls in annoyance. "How much longer 'til we get there?"

Betsy has a look of annoyance cross her face temporarily. Scott turns to her. "Don't worry about him, he's like this," He looks outside, more firetrucks pass by. "But seriously though, how long until we get there?"

Betsy sighs in annoyance as she parks the car. "At this point we'd be faster on foot. Come on."

The three get out of the car and maneuver their way through the growing crowd as they near the source of the explosion. Eventually they make it, once there they find law enforcement standing behind the fire department as they deal with the shrinking fire.

"Stick with me, I'll give us a telepathic cloak." Betsy's eyes glow purple as a feeling of invisibility washes over the three. Scott and Logan look at each other, a similar thought going through their minds. Another telepath.

Walking into the building the three find what's left of the safehouse. "Dammit." Betsy mutters.

Crouching down she wipes some rubble off a picture, on it Logan and Scott see Betsy in her original body alongside a young man around her age with blond hair and a man older than them with brown hair.

"My brothers," She explains. "My twin Brian's the blond one, Jaime's the brown haired one, he's ten years older than us."

"Where are they?" Scott asks.

Betsy sighs. "Brian's home, or he's out with Meggan, who knows. Jaime's…I don't know."

"You don't have to say more," Scott says. "Now, any idea who blew up your safehouse?"

"I have one."

Betsy points to one of the few intact walls. On it the two see a red handprint, a kunai holding up a note. Logan walks forward and tears the note from the kunai. "'Come to the Place. Alone. If you want it back'."

"What's 'it'?" Scott asks.

"My body. My original body. I don't know what the process was, but one day I was in my original body, the next I'm in this one," She explains. "Let's go."

She exits the building, Logan and Scott follow.

* * *

**The team**

After an hour of driving we finally arrive at the Belmont home. Fuck yes, fuck yes, fuck yes! It feels like forever since I've been here. As we stand at the door, I knock on the door excitedly, the door opens to show Ashley, the maid. Her eyes widen as she sees me.

"Ashley! How are ya?" I wrap her in a giant bearhug.

As I lift her up, she wraps me in a hug as well. "Nolan! What are you doing here? And who are your friends?"

"These are my friends: Jean Grey, Bobby Drake, Kitty Pryde, Anna Marie (Call her Rogue), Remy LeBeau (Keep an eye on our shit), Jubilation Lee (Call her Jubilee), Piotr Rasputin, Shiro Yoshida, and…" Wait, where's Kurt?

"Kurt?"

From one of the bushes at the gate Kurt's head pokes out, his hood up. Realizing that all eyes are on him he walks reluctantly walks towards us. Once he reaches us, he slowly reaches for his hood, he then takes it down slowly as well.

"Oh! Well, I've seen weirder. The world is becoming stranger and stranger as the years go on." Ashley reassures.

Kurt smiles in thanks. "_Danke_."

"Is Grandma here?" I ask.

Ashley smiles and turns around. "Come with me, I'll lead you to her."

Going through the house I give the others quick history lessons. "So that's a picture of my great grandfather, Alistair Belmont, he fought in World War II. And that's a picture of my Mom, Grandma, and…him."

The portrait has Grandma sitting in an ornate chair when she was in her early thirties, Mom, around seven maybe eight, sitting on her lap, and Nathaniel Essex standing behind them, his hand resting on Grandma's shoulder.

"Isn't he pale white? And where's the diamond on his forehead?" Jubilee asks.

"He's capable of cellular shapeshifting, meaning he can do basically anything to his body." I inform.

"Wait, cellular shapeshifting? Our archives just have shapeshifting." Bobby says.

"Yeah, with it he can do a whole lot with his body, become semi-liquid or harden to being like armor. Weirdly enough, when he wants to look like a normal human, he tends to just alter his physical appearance." I say.

"Guess we'll need to-" Jean gasps loudly as we pass by the photos on the fireplace. She picks up one and places it next to my face. Shit, I know exactly which picture- "Look at you! You were a cute wittle baby, weren't you!?" Yup. It's the photo of baby me.

Well, not baby me, more me when I was about four. On the photo I'm standing in front of an amusement park, wearing a hat my Dad won for me. Everyone else circles in to look at the photo, Rogue and Jubilee coo with Jean. "Wow, how'd something that cute become…that?"

I give her a blank look. "Thanks Rogue, I appreciate it."

"Wow, I almost forgot how cute you were Nol." Kitty comments.

"And how do I look now?" I smirk.

She blushes lightly and looks away.

"Ashley? Who's-oh." Grandma comes from down the hallway, taking off her gardening gloves.

"Grandma!" I move forward, the two of us wrap each other in a hug. "How are ya?"

"I'm good, Nolan," She looks at the rest of the group. "I see you've made new friends."

"Right: these two are Anna Marie (Call her Rouge), and Remy LeBeau, we met them in Louisiana. Keep an eye on Remy, he's a thief."

"Hey, Remy knows when to keep his hands to himself. No need to worry." Remy says, holding his hands up.

"Nice to meet ya, thank for lettin' us stay here." Rogue says.

"This is Kitty Pryde." I continue.

"Oh! You've grown, haven't you?" Grandma greets.

Kitty smiles. "Nice to see you again, Mrs. Belmont."

"Guess you two do remember each other. This is Jubilation Lee (Call her Jubilee). Met her in Cali, that was fun." I introduce her.

"We got kidnapped!" Jubilee holds her two thumbs out and has a large smile on her face.

"Shiro Yoshida of Japan."

Shiro just bows slightly.

"Iron Giant here's Piotr Rasputin, we met him in Russia." I wave my arm out to him.

"_Privyet._" He says.

"Last but not least, Kurt Wagner! We met him at a circus in Germany." I finish.

Kurt timidly walks forward and offers his hand to shake, Grandma takes it without any problem. "My ex-husband's pale white, has red eyes, and sharp teeth. Nothing phases me anymore."

"You got anything to eat?" Bobby interrupts.

Jean elbows him in the gut. "Bobby!"

Grandma lightly laughs and waves it off. "It's fine. A few years ago, the first thing Nolan did when he and his parents visited was go straight for the fridge."

I groan at the memory. Mom gave me the riot act after that, wasn't fun.

Right. Gotta call them. "Hey, Grandma, is your computer still in your library?"

"Yes, why?"

"Bobby brought something to my attention, so I gotta call Mom and Dad to figure it out." I answer.

"What do you need to ask?" Grandma questions. The two of us separate from the group, Ashley leads the others to the kitchen as we walk to her office.

"I wanna ask Dad about his last name," I say. Grandma stiffens momentarily before continuing to walk. Strange. "You know something, don't you?"

Grandma sighs as she opens the doors, heads to her computer, and enters her password. "Nolan, trust me when I say this: your Father's original last name shouldn't worry you."

"Grandma, you know me, when I have a mystery, I solve it. I got it from Mom, who in turn got it from you, so this is kind of your fault from a certain point of view." I smirk.

Grandma smirks as well as she shakes her head. "Don't say I didn't warn you. I'm going to go with your friends, learn more about them. And Kitty." She leaves the room.

Why the hell did she single Kitty out? Eh, whatever. I open the video call app but pause just before I begin the call. Would they be awake right now? It's the afternoon here, so it'd be midnight in the states, right? Who am I kidding, those two are night owls, we all are. That's problematic, right?

After two rings the screen shows my parents at home, looks like they're on one of their laptops in the kitchen. "Nolan! Hey baby, how are you?" Mom begins.

"I'm good, travelling the world and all that. It's fun. How are you guys?" I ask.

Dad shrugs as he balances a pen between his nose and upper lip. Mom just rolls her eyes in annoyance. "Can't complain. Not that we don't mind but, why are you calling? I mean, you already did last week."

I scratch my head and begin to second guess myself. Was Grandma correct? Would it be better to not ask this question? Nah, gotta do it, it's now or never. I take a deep breath and look at them, Dad more.

"When we got here Bobby brought something to my attention, something I should have questioned long ago: what is your original last name, Dad?" I inquire.

I notice the two of them stiffen, Dad's pen falls out of balance. He quickly fumbles around to grab it, once he does, he gets back up and looks at me intensely through the call. "That's a question I hoped to never hear. Then again look at you, you're a smart kid, was stupid of me to think that would never come to light."  
I don't like the sound of this. Maaan, what if I'm related to another villain? Like Doctor Doom or Baron Zemo. That'd suck.

Dad sighs. "This is a conversation we need to have at a later time. Once you come back to the states we'll talk, alright?"

I nod. "Yeah, sounds good," There's an awkward silence, Mom looks between the two of us. "Any news on the superhero front?" I change the subject.

Dad gains a giant smile as he basically bounces in his seat. "There's this new team called the Fantastic Four out there, they fought some weird green creature a week ago. Captain America was also found."

I blink a lot. Wait, what? THE Captain America? "He's alive?"

Mom nods. "The Avengers found him in the Arctic, now he's one of them. Pretty sure Angel, Beast, Ant Man, and Captain America had a team up just recently."

Warren and Hank, you lucky bastards! "I hope I can meet him someda-"

The doors to the office open, Grandma comes in and stands next to me. "Julie, Cayde, how are you two?"

"We're great Mom, thanks. Nolan has to hop off?" Mom says.

Grandma nods. "Some more of his friends came, they say it's important that they all meet."

"Bye Mom, bye Dad, love you guys." I get up.

"We love you. Bye!" Mom and Dad say in unison.

Grandma stays to talk to my parents. As I near the kitchen I hear voices talking, mainly Scott. "Now that Nolan's here we can begin this meeting. Right, Betsy?"

"Last week I was kidnapped, but I was still in my original body. Over the week my mental fortitude was constantly tested, then one day I woke up in a new body. This body." Betsy begins.

"Do you know who did this to you? And where your original body is?" Jean asks.

"The Hand. An ancient order of ninjas. I don't know why they wanted me exactly, maybe it has to do with my brother, Brian." Psylocke answers.

"Who's Brian? And why is he important?" Bobby asks.

"Brian's my brother. And next in line to be Captain Britain after my Father's time is done." Betsy says.

"Woah. Your dad's Captain Britain? Holy shit. Next thing you know Captain America's gonna come back." Bobby comments.

I cough and look to the side awkwardly. Everyone looks at me, Bobby's eyes widen. "No. Fucking. Way."

"He was found in the Arctic by the Avengers. Warren and Hank had a team up with him and Iron Man not to long ago." I explain.

"Those lucky sons of bitches!" Bobby shouts.

"We're getting off topic," Betsy interjects. "When we arrived, we found a note left by the Hand."

Logan places the note on the table. Remy steps forward to read it. "'Come to the place. Alone. If you want it back'. Remy's guessin' that 'it' is your original body?"

"Remy would be correct. But if there's anything I know about the Hand, it's that they won't honor this." Betsy says.

"So, you want us to be there with you?" Jean asks.

"Yes. My body will be there, that's for certain, we just need to take them out before they could move it away." Betsy plans.

"Let's say this works," Kitty interjects. "What about this body? I mean, who's is it?"

"I don't know, but chances are, the Hand has the original owner's soul somewhere nearby. Or they could be in my body. We've wasted enough time; we need to go now." Betsy turns around and heads towards the door.

"One quick problem: Where's 'the place'? That doesn't sound really specific." Jubilee adds.

"Follow me." Betsy calls out as she nears the door.

"Ninjas. Dope." Bobby follows after her.

We all share looks, Scott shrugs and follows, the rest of us behind them.

I turn around to Amy before we leave. "Well, we'll be back in a bit, Amy. Tell Grandma I said bye."

Amy waves as she walks towards the office.

Well, time to fight some ancient ninjas.

* * *

I dodge the slash from one of the ninjas. As his blade is embedded into the ground, I grab him by the wrist and shock him using my Thor powers. A pillar of ice slams into him, launching him and some other ninjas around.

"You good, man?" Bobby asks as he lands next to me. He stomps, another ice pillar erupts from under a few ninjas, some of them recuperate mid-air.

I raise my arms up, my eyes glow, I then drop my arms down, two giant lightning strikes come down, colliding with a group of them. One rolls away, but as soon as she gets up Rogue puts her hand on her face. Once the ninja falls over Rogue grabs her weapons and moves around as if she were one of them. Any ninjas left up as she runs through them are attacked by fireworks from Jubilee.

A ninja sneaks up behind me and attempts to cut my head off, before she could swing a metallic fist punches her in the side of the head, sending her flying. I turn and give Piotr a nod.

"Nolan!" Scott shouts, barely dodging some kunai thrown at him. "Take to the sky and assist Jean and Shiro!"

I swap to my Northstar powers and take to the air, firing blasts of light as I do. Flying back to back with Shiro the two of us shoot at the ninjas jumping at us. Thanks to Jean's telekinesis any kunai or shurikens launched at us are deflected.

I notice a ninja sneaking up on Kitty, before I could shoot him a burst of black smoke with a _BAMF _sound appears from behind him. Kurt's tail snaps out and wraps around his wrist holding the sword. Kurt kicks the ninja in the face and uses his tail to take the sword, Kitty turns around and punches him in the neck. Kurt grabs Kitty and teleports as one of Gambit's cards connect to the ninjas side, the explosion sending him and any nearby ninjas away.

I see a dogpile growing, flying towards it Shiro and I hit it with beams of energy. Eventually Logan bursts from the pile, he grabs a ninja by the arm and stabs him in the leg, he then turns around and slashes another's arm.

I land next to him; an area of effect explosion of light erupts from my landing. I stand back to back with Logan. "Anyone know where the body is?" Logan shouts. He ducks and slashes one in the arm with his claws.

"Ah think Ah see it!" Rogue shouts. She continues to jump around the ninjas, throwing kunai and slashing them as she does.

"Where!" Betsy demands. Her eyes glow pink purple as she stabs a ninja through the head with her psionic knife.

Oh, right. Betsy's powers of telekinesis allow her to make psionic weapons, with them she can stab people without killing them if she doesn't want to. They're cool powers, not gonna lie.

In the distance five ninjas can be seen around a ritual circle, in between them is a casket. Chances are her body's in there.

"Nolan!" Scott shouts.

"On it!"

I take to the air and fly towards them. As I near the group I hear their chanting, I fire a concussive blast into the back of the nearest one. He falls over onto the casket, the one next to him pushes him off. I reach out for the casket, once I touch it the four ninjas disappear.

What? No.

A shout of rage comes form behind me. Turning around I see Betsy holding the one ninja from the ritual by his clothing. All the other ninjas are gone as well. What I really mean is that their bodies are gone, their clothing and armor are still here, reminds me of Cell's victims from _Dragon Ball Z_.

"Where is it!? Where the bloody hell is my body!?" Betsy demands. Her psionic knife is placed on his forehead.

The ninja just chuckles.

Jean uses her telepathy. "Nothing. It's strange, I don't think he's even real."

"Or you aren't trying hard enough." Betsy growls. Her glowing eyes increase in intensity.

The two glare at the ninja, their telepathic invasion ongoing. Bobby places a hand on my shoulder and glances at Jean. Yeah man, it's strange seeing her quickly get more powerful.

Eventually the two sigh and leave the ninja's head. "She's right," Betsy reluctantly accepts. "There is nothing in his head. He isn't even real."

Logan takes that cue to cut the ninja's head off. Instead of a splatter of blood we see a black ink-like substance spurt out of his neck and head. The body and head then dissipate into dust-like particles. Guess they were never real.

Thing's are silent for a moment. Betsy then turns to us. "Where to next?"

* * *

The next day we find ourselves in the _Blackbird_, Scott's beginning the flight to Ireland, our last destination. Jubilee turns to Betsy, who is currently sitting next to her. "So, you got a codename?"

"Codename?" Betsy asks.

"Yeah! I go by Jubilee, Scott's Cyclops, and Jean's Marvel Girl, for example. What's yours gonna be?" Jubilee explains.

Betsy thinks it over for a bit. She then shrugs. "Psylocke."

"Welcome to the team, Psylocke," Scott says. "Alright team, next and final stop, Ireland!"

* * *

**And that's the end of that chapter. Sorry it's short, things have been getting really busy for me lately. On that note: after the next chapter, which will be the end of this arc, I might put this story on a hiatus as I deal with school. There'll be a more definite answer by next weeks chapter. Thanks for understanding!**

**Quick note: Cayde's original last name is important, we'll find out more in the future. Although it may be ridiculous, but hey, this is a comic book story, everything's ridiculous! **

**That's all from me. Please leave a constructive criticism and remember to stay awesome! See you next week.**


	22. In Ireland, Everyone Can Hear You Scream

**Here we are with the final chapter of the Recruitment Arc! It's been a trip, literally. Some things: I've added a timeline to the story, it just roughly says when each arc happens. For example: The Sinister Arc happened in late 2013, and the X Arc took place throughout 2014, while this arc takes place in late 2014, about a year after the Sinister Arc. **

**Speaking of arcs, I've added three more arcs: Blue & Gold Arc, which takes place between the Brotherhood and Krakoa Arcs. The Genosha Arc, which takes place between the Legacy and Avengers v X-Men arc. Lastly, the Uncanny arc, which takes place after the House of X/Powers of X arc, making it the latest arc so far. This also brings us to a total of 23 arcs! **

**And some things about the story: Starting in the Brotherhood Arc I've decided to go for a targeted word count of around 8,000 words per chapter, not as big as my DC story, but still pretty big chapters. **

**That's all from me up here. Let's get on with the story, yeah?**

* * *

**In Ireland, Everyone Can Hear You Scream**

Y'know, I could call them right now. 'Hey Mom and Dad, so you gonna tell me more about your last name, Dad?' But that wouldn't end well, would it. Especially considering the fact that everyone else is here too, awkward would be putting it lightly.

"How'd you get in trouble with some ninjas?" Jubilee asks Betsy, she's bouncing around in her seat.

Betsy just smiles and ruffles Jubilee's already wild hair. "Like I said, I don't know why. Maybe my brother, or maybe the person who owned this body and me are connected in some way," She shrugs. "Once we find the Hand, we're definitely going to figure this thing out."

"And get your body back," Jubilee adds.

"And get my body back," Betsy reaffirms. She then looks to Scott and Jean. "Where to next?"

Jean pulls up the holographic screens in front of us, Ireland becomes highlighted. "Ireland. Here we'll find Sean Cassidy, he's an ex-Interpol agent, now freelance detective for about thirteen years now."

"Vhy is he ex-Interpol?" Kurt asks.

Jean pulls up an old article about a bombing. "In Northern Ireland the Irish Republican Army, or the IRA, had bombed the location. There were multiple casualties, Cassidy's wife included. Shortly after he left Interpol and became a freelance detective."

"Damn, dat sucks." Remy mutters.

"Agreed," Logan says. "What're his powers?"

Some grainy security footage is shown. In it we see two men holding a woman hostage in an alleyway, another man comes walking in from the end, once the two men look at him, he screams, sending them flying away. The footage clears to show Sean Cassidy was the one to do the scream.

"Sonic screaming. Nice," Kitty comments.

"Yeah, nice," Logan grumbles.

I turn to him. "If you think you have it bad then imagine how John's gonna feel."

An evil grin comes over Logan's face.

A call comes from the mansion. We all look at each other, Bobby and I have our eyebrows raised, wonder why they're calling now?

Jean answers the call, the Professor and Warren at the other end of the call. "Professor, what's happening?"

"Just some updates, one from Warren, more for Nolan if I'm correct," The Professor answers.

Warren takes up some more space on the screen. "Nolan, remember those four people at Worthington Industries?"

"The nerd, the two blond siblings, and the big guy. What about them?" I ask.

"Look up The Fantastic Four."

I look at the hologram in front of me and enter "The Fantastic Four" into the search bar…holy shit. Wait, what's up with the rock monster? Whatever, I look up at Warren with wide eyes.

He nods his head vigorously. "I know, right?"

"Who are The Fantastic Four?" Betsy asks.

Warren finally notices everyone else, especially her. "Why hello there, the name's Warren Worthington III. What's yours?"

"You'll find out when we get back," Scott interrupts, smirking at Warren's scowl. "But yeah, who's The Fantastic Four?"

"They're a new superhero team. Get this: their identities are public, like, they revealed them right from the get-go. Reed Richards is Mister Fantastic, Susan Storm is the Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm is the Human Torch, and Ben Grimm is The Thing," Warren explains.

"Wait, the rock monster's that big dude?" I ask.

"Yup," Warren nods.

"Can he transform back and forth?" I ask.

Warren shrugs. Damn, that sucks.

The Professor takes over. "According to the tracker on the _Blackbird _I would guess you are nearing Ireland, correct?"

"Yes, is there anything we should look out for?" Scott asks.

"No. Although I must ask for you to change your flight plan, Cassidy is not in Ireland right now, he is at Muir Island," The Professor says.

Kitty sits up in her seat. "Wait, Muir Island? As in the Muir Island with the Mutant Research Center, Muir Island?"

The Professor nods with a small smile. "Yes, that Muir Island."

"What's he doin' there, Chuck?" Logan asks.

"I believe he is there regarding his cousin, Thomas Cassidy, who is also a mutant. Once you land a…friend of mine will meet you, she will then take you to the Mutant Research Center, there you can make your plans," The Professor says.

Bobby and I share a look. Why did the Professor struggle at the word "friend"? A knowing smile then comes over our faces.

"Why Professor," Bobby begins, a sly smile on his face. "Who is this "Friend" you're talking about. I mean, you did say "she"."

The Professor actually has a light blush on his face, Warren, Jean, Scott, Bobby, and I laugh, Logan just chuckles. The others look at each other confused, not sure what's going on.

"Yes, my friend is a she, is that so hard to believe?" The Professor mutters. "Anyways, she will meet you at the airport, from there you will have a transport take you to the Mutant Research Center. Once there you can make your plans as to how to approach Cassidy."

The Professor and Warren look up, we can hear someone talking to them. Warren leaves and the Professor looks back at us. "Ororo just came, there is something we must see now. I eagerly await your arrival with our new family members."

"See ya, Professor," Bobby and I salute as the call ends.

"That was the Professor?" Piotr asks.

"Yup. And apparently there's a possible "Mrs. Xavier" on this island," Bobby jokes.

"C'mon, Bobby, let's not mess with something we know nothing about, alright?" Scott warns.

Bobby groans and folds his arms. "Alright, alright. When are we gonna land?"

The _Blackbird _does a turn. Scott looks at the console. "About two hours, give or take."

Bobby leans his seat back and puts his arms under his head. "Hooray." He drones.

"Hey, Scott, I've been meaning to ask: how'd you get to be such a good pilot?" I ask.

"Oh, easy, my Dad was my inspiration, he was a pilot, too," Scott answers.

"Was?" Rogue asks.

"A, uh, a few years ago my Mom, Dad, brother Alex and I were flying to Hawaii for a vacation with a private plane. It crashed. My parents died, and I have no idea where Alex is," Scott answers, his demeanor becoming negative.

"Sorry for askin'," Rogue mutters.

"It's fine," Scott shrugs. "Besides, Alex is still out there, that's enough to keep me going."

Kitty leans forward, her head next to mine. "Betsy wants her body; Scott needs to find his body. How many mysteries do you guys deal with?"

"John also wants to find his best friend who was captured a couple of months ago," I answer.

Kitty raises an eyebrow and just stares. "Why so many mysteries?"

I just shrug, smirking as well. "Who knows. I like to think it adds to the spice of life."

Kitty leans back into her seat. I follow Bobby's lead and lean my seat back, going so far back the seat hovers over Kitty's knees. While my eyes are closed, I feel a tap on my forehead. Opening my eyes, I see Kitty playfully glaring at me. I just shrug. I then close my eyes and go to sleep.

* * *

I hear a 'SNIKT' sound just inches from my face. Jerking my eyes open I see Logan's claws barely a centimeter away from the bridge of my nose, just above my most recent scar. I turn to see him smirking, he does the same thing to Bobby with his other arm.

"Get up, we're here," He says. He retracts his claws and gets up, heading towards the lowered ramp.

Kitty phases through me and the chair to get up, before she walks to the group, she pats me on the forehead. Bobby and I groan in annoyance as we simultaneously bring our seats back to their neutral positions and unbuckle our seatbelts. We've been hanging out for far too long.

"Hey," He says.

"Yeah?" I reply.

"We did the same thing at the same time, isn't that a little scary?"

"Yup," I pop the p.

We get up, following Scott and Jean off the _Blackbird_. Once the four of us get off the ramp it raises up, closing off the jet. Looking ahead we see a small group of people and a number of cars waiting for us, shrugging, Scott walks towards them, we all follow his lead.

Once we reach the group a brunette woman walks forward and shakes Scott's hand, followed by the rest of us. "Nice t' meet yah, the name's Moira MacTaggert. Charles told me I should be expectin' a big group, but I wasn't plannin' for something this big."

"You're on a first name basis with the Professor? Interesting," Bobby comments. Scott flicks his head.

"Sorry about Bobby, he doesn't know when to stop talking," Scott apologizes.

Moira laughs lightly. "Think nothing of it. Now, there was somethin' ye were here for, or rather, someone. Let's go to meh lab, we can talk there," She turns around and heads to the lead vehicle. "Sorry, but there aren't enough seats for all of ye, yeh'll need to go in multiple cars."

"It's okay," Scott nods. He then looks around at the group. "Logan and Jean with me. Betsy, Shiro, Jubilee, and Kurt in the second car. Bobby, Nolan, and Kitty in the third car. Remy, Rogue, and Piotr in the last car."

We all head to our vehicles in our groups, Bobby at the left, me in the middle, and Kitty at the right window. The driver begins to follow the convoy. As we do Bobby turns to the two of us. "So, this Moira lady's supposed to be around the Professor's age right?"

I raise an eyebrow, not sure where this is going. I'm not liking it either. "Yeah?"

"Then how old is she? Cause, the Professor's pretty damn old," Bobby finishes.

Kitty and I share a glance. "The Professor's old? I mean, I wouldn't put him as twenty years older than my Dad, and my Dad's pretty old."

"You just think he's old cause he doesn't understand smart phones like you do," I say, giving her a blank look.

Kitty chuckles guiltily as she points finger guns at me. "Let me have my reasons, Nol."

"Okay, I'm gonna stop your little flirting session so we can go back to my idea," Bobby says. We both glare at him. "You guys do know when the Professor was born, right?"

"Mid to late sixties?" We both guess.

Bobby just chuckles. "Oh, you poor, misguided children you. He was born in 1932, making him-"

"82," Kitty interrupts. "Holy shit," We both say.

I shake my head to gather my thoughts. "How the hell is he 82? I mean, he looks like he's his fifties."

"Before he met the original five, he and an old friend of his had an encounter with another mutant, and now they stay in their prime for a far longer time," Bobby explains.

"Who's the friend?" I ask.

"We have no idea."

Hm, that's curious. Do I wanna ask him when we get back? Nah.

Kitty rapidly taps my shoulder as she sticks her head through the window. She comes back in and looks at the two of us, bouncing in her seat. "Guys! It's the Mutant Research Center!" Her excitement dampens greatly. "Wait, you guys do know what it is, do you?"

Bobby rolls his eyes. "Kitty, we're X-Men, of course we know what the Mutant Research Center is."

"It's the world's foremost, well, research center, on how mutations work, why they happen, and how to study them," I finish. Bobby and I don't look at each other but we do a fist bump, with explosion fingers.

Kitty has an impressed look on her face as she nods. She then does a golf clap. "I'm impressed," Her excitement comes back with a vengeance. "Well, we're fucking here! Yes! Yes! YES!"

"You're excited about this, aren't you?" Bobby asks.

"Of course, I am! Well, I'm not really excited about the research per say, I'm more interested in the computers they have. Far as I can tell their top of the line," Kitty says.

I turn to Bobby. "She's always been a nerd when it came to computers. When we were younger, she somehow hacked our DS's so we could have every Pokémon available from the get-go. It was fun."

The convoy enters an indoor garage, the cars all stop, and the drivers get out to open the car doors. We all stand together, Moira and two guards standing across from us. "Welcome to the Mutant Research Center! Let me show ye around!"

We enter a large elevator, as it rises up, we look through the see-through shaft, watching the wildlife in their controlled environments. "What is done here?" Shiro asks.

Whoa, that's a first, Shiro beginning the conversation.

"Well, we look at the X-Gene, in lads and lassies who offered their services. We then study how it relates to their parents, and what could happen to any possible children they have," Moira explains.

Rogue opens her mouth; she then closes it. Remy notices me looking at her and looks at me, he taps his head. I create a telepathic link between the two of us. _"She probably wants de Doctor to see what she can do about her powers,"_ He explains.

_"Right. We'll give her the time to ask alone if she wants to, then," _I reply.

_"Thanks, mon ami,"_ Remy closes off his end of the telepathic link.

"What kind of computers do you guys have?" Kitty excitedly asks.

Moira laughs lightly at her excitement. "We have some advanced technology, Forge helped build much of it, actually."

"Wait, Forge's been here before?" I ask.

Moira nods. "Yes, he and Charles had been here years ago, before he found the X-Men, actually."

I turn to Scott and Jean. "Forge helped build Cerebro and travelled with the Professor here before the X-Men, why wasn't the original five not the original six?"

"Forge disappeared for a period of time, by the time the Professor was making the team he had no idea where Forge was, even with Cerebro," Jean answers.

"Yeah, that's great and all," Jubilee interrupts. "What kind of big boom boom powers have you dealt with?"  
Moira rubs her chin. "There was one mutant who would grow exponentially, that was an experience. Then there was another, a boy from Brazil, he could absorb the powers of the sun and light himself on fire and gain super strength."

The doors to the elevator open, before Moira even gets out a blur of green and blue with red on top collides with her. "Yer back! I've missed ye!" The blur becomes a girl, around ten to eleven years old.

"I was gone for only an hour," Moira turns to us, still holding the girl. "Everyone, meet Rahne Sinclair, she's meh ward. Say hi, Rahne."

"Hi, Rahne," Rahne cheekily repeats.

Moira ruffles her hair. "She's a mutant."

Rahne looks at Moira, fear palpable in her eyes. Moira cups her face. "It's okay, Rahne. They're mutants too. The X-Men, actually.

Rahne looks at us with wide eyes. Logan unsheathes his claws, Bobby ices up, and Jubilee creates some fireworks. Rahne smiles and backs up out of the elevator, the rest of us follow to see her standing in the center of a large room.

Rahne takes some calming breaths, eventually she begins to shift. Her face becomes wolf-like, her body grows in size slightly, and she grows light brown fur all along her body. Once the transformation completes, she reveals her werewolf form.

"Zat's cool," Kurt comments, he drops his hood, unwraps his tail, and takes his hands out of his pockets.

"You got that right," I comment as well. I then do the same thing. I also increase in size, and black fur comes over my body.

Rahne looks at me in surprise before she runs forward, she then circles around me, sniffing me. "Yer a werewolf, too?"

"Not really. My powers let me copy other powers. And now I can copy yours," I explain. "I've noticed something though; you can go further than this."

"Oh. I, erm, I don't like going all the way. I don't have a lot of control," She sheepishly admits.

Moira stands behind her and places comforting hands on her shoulders. "It's something we're working on here. Not all mutants can control their powers, here we try to help as best we can."

Rahne shifts back to normal. "We can give ye a tour!"

"Yes, that's next on the-" She looks at the group, she raises an eyebrow in confusion. "Where's the brown-haired girl?"

We all look amongst ourselves to find that Kitty is indeed gone. How the hell did she sneak by both me and Logan? Intangibility. Man, she can be one hell of a ninja when she wants to be.

I sniff the air, after a few seconds I find her scent. "She's headed west. Is there anything important there?" I ask as I shift back to normal.

Moira just smiles. "Just the computers. How did she find them so fast?"

"Probably asked someone," Remy says.

Moira's watch goes off, once she looks at it, she looks back at us with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, this is an important call. I'll have the staff give the tour, yeah?"

"Of course, doctor," Scott says.

"W-wait," Rogue says. "Can Ah talk to yah about somethin'? It's important, we can do it on the way to your office."

Moira mulls it over before nodding. She turns around and motions for Rogue to follow her.

"Wait," Rogue turns to me. "Nolan, could you come with?"

I raise an eyebrow in intrigue and surprise but nod, nonetheless. As the two of us follow the doctor I hear the staff and Rahne begin the tour.

"What did you want to talk about?" Moira asks.

"Mah powers, they…Ah want to know if you can help me control 'em," Rogue answers.

"Why would I need to help you control them?" Moira asks.

"Ah can't touch people with skin-to-skin contact-"

"Which is why yer covered like a nun," Moira observes.

Rogue nods. "Yeah. Ah wanna know if you can help me."

"And what of him, uh..."

"Nolan, Nolan Belmont," I introduce myself.

Rogue takes off her glove and pinches my cheek. "As you can see, he's the only person Ah can touch without havin' to worry about hurtin' 'im."

"You're hurting me right now," I comment.

She stops pinching my cheek and rubs it. "You okay now, wittle baby?"

I growl and get out of her grasp; I then turn to the doctor. "But yeah, can you help her get control?"

We stop outside Moira's office. She opens the door, but before she enters, she turns around. "Wait out here, I'll send for an assistant to take ye to a lab. Once this call's done, I'll meet ye there, okay?"

Rogue nods vigorously. "Yes, thank you."

Moira gives us one more reassuring smile before entering her office. Rogue goes to the wall next to the door, she then slides down until she sits, I sit next to her. "You okay?" I ask.

"Do you think she can help me?"

"No."

Rogue looks at me, shocked at my answer, she then becomes angry, before she shouts at me, I hold my hand up.

"Let me explain myself: No, she can't help you. You help you. The only way you can gain control of your powers is with her help. But she can help you find the right starting point," I explain.

Rogue smiles before hugging me. "Thanks, Ah needed that."

"No problem, Rogue, I'm here to help," I open my eyes to see someone walking towards us, I tap Rogue on the shoulder, telling her we have company.

The female staff member stops in front of us, a polite smile on her face. "Hello, my name is Cecilia Reyes, I believe the doctor told me to get the two of you."

I get up, offering a hand to help Rogue up as well. We then turn to the doctor. "Lead the way, doc."

Rogue slaps me upside my head. "My name's Anna Marie, but I prefer Rogue."

Oh, right. "Sorry. Name's Nolan Belmont."

"Think nothing of it. Come, let me take you to the lab," We follow her down the hallway, looking in rooms where we see people testing their powers. She turns around and walks backwards. "This part of the facility is meant to help mutants learn more about their powers. Which one of you will go through the procedure today?"

Rogue raises her hand.

Dr. Reyes nods. "Got it."

We continue walking, eventually we reach a part of the facility that has less people, looking around I noticed something interesting, a door with two guards posted at either side. We walk past it; on the door it reads: "Proteus".

I look at Dr. Reyes. "Hey, doc," She turns her head to me. "What's Proteus?"

"I don't know. Only Dr. MacTaggert is allowed in the room, and even if you tried to look inside you can't, past the door's a bridge to a separate part of the facility. Hell, pass the bridge's another security door," She answers.

I hear Rogue mutter under her breath. "Proteus must be important then."

"I guess so. Imma ask her," I whisper back.

"Nolan, no," She warns.

I smirk. "Nolan, yes."

We stop in front of an open door. "Alright, let's get this procedure started, once the Dr. MacTaggert is on her way I'll inform the two of you," Dr. Reyes says.

Rogue sits on the bed in the center of the room. Dr. Reyes puts on some gloves and tries grab Rogue by the arm to raise her sleeve, Rogue jerks her arm back. "I can't do the procedure if you won't let me."

"Her powers have her absorb the lifeforce of people she touches with skin contact. It's so you won't get hurt," I explain.

The doctor smirks, she grabs one of those little hammers they hit you on the knee with to test reflexes and hits herself on the arm. Or, she tries to, before the hammer connects a clear shield appears over her skin.

"My powers increase my durability, I think I'll be good," She explains.

Rogue backs up even further, she shakes her head. "No. That ain't enough. Nolan can do it."

Dr. Reyes looks at me. "Do you have an M.D. in emergency medicine?"

"Uh, no. But I can activate my telepathy and download it from you," I reply.

"Do it."

I activate my telepathy and download the data I need. Once that's done, I look at the doctor in awe. "Why are you doing nurse stuff, you can easily be doing surgery and all that other crap."

"I still do that "crap", I just like to do this to unwind. So, can you set it up?" She asks.

I nod. She moves out of the way and lets me start the procedure, checking Rogue's pulse, looking in her ears and mouth with that light doctors use, normal doctor shit. Eventually Dr. Reyes taps me on the shoulder, gaining my attention. "Not gonna lie, I'm impressed. I've gotta go, another mutant needs my help. Dr. MacTaggert's on her way."

A few moments after Dr. Reyes leaves Rogue and I sit in silence, I look over the results, actually understanding it thanks to the data I've downloaded. Telepathy for the win!

"What'd you see?" She asks.

"Far as I can tell you look normal to me. Well, as normal as a mutant can be, but normal, nonetheless," I answer.

The door then opens, revealing Dr. MacTaggert. "I had an interesting conversation with Dr. Reyes, she said ye did the procedure, Nolan?"

I nod. "I used telepathy and downloaded it from her brain. After all, her powers wouldn't help protect her from Rogue's."

"I see. Come, we'll need to go to another room if we want to do this," She turns around and leaves the room, the two of us following.

I swap back to my Thunderbird powers as we pass the Proteus room. May as well ask now. "Hey, Dr. MacTaggert?"

"Please, call me Moira."

"Moira. What's behind the Proteus room?"

Physically she doesn't react much, but with my super hearing I can hear her heart skip a beat. Rogue gives me a pointed look and elbows me in the side, although it hurts her more than me.

"Oh, just an important project of mine. No one but myself is allowed back there, okay?" She kind of answers. We stop in front of a door. "Oh! Here we are, come in, come in. Let's see yer powers."

I hand Moira the files describing Rogue's powers. Said girl goes to sit on the edge of the bed in the center of the room, she gives me another pointed look as she does. I swap to my telepathy and create a link between us.

_"Nolan, what the hell?" _She mentally shouts.

_"Hey, only way to solve a mystery is to start investigating it. Has _Scooby Doo _taught you nothing?" _I nonchalantly reply.

Rogue glares at me as she cuts off the link. Whatever. Hm, just realized something: other than Betsy, the others have quickly gotten used to telepathic conversations. Then again, Rogue did have telepathy for a bit when we first met her, so that must help. Crap, the doctor's talking.

"-machine here will scan yer DNA to see if there's any damage. If ye feel like yer in pain tell me, okay?"

"Of course," Rogue lays down. Two glass screens come over Rogue, making the bed look like a cryo tube.

Images pop up all over the tube, one showing an x-ray of her body, another looking at things like heartrate and body temperature.

I walk behind Moira and look over her shoulder, watching her put in commands that I actually understand. Again, telepathy for the win! I hum as I look at the data. "Just like the files said, it doesn't look like there's any cellular damage," I comment.

Moira nods. "Ye got that right. Rogue, I think we found out what's happenin' with yer powers."

The glass covers go back into the bed. Rogue sits up and looks at Moira, a hopeful look in her eyes. "So, what's the damage? What do Ah have to do to get started?"

"Believe in yerself."

Rogue blinks in confusion. "Ah'm sorry. What?"

"Believe in yerself, Rogue," Moira repeats. She pulls up a holographic screen of the results. "Ye have no damage in yer DNA. Far as I can tell, the reason you don't have control over yer powers-"

"Is because you don't want control," I interrupt.

Rogue looks at me confused. "What do yah mean? If anyone wants control of mah powers, it's me!"

"Yeah, you do. But that might not be the case subconsciously. When you activated your powers, was there any negative…thing going on?" I ask.

"No. Ah-Ah was-"

Logan opens the door. "Hey, Cassidy's here, he's got something important to tell us."

Rogue quickly gets up and slides past Logan. He looks at her retreating form before turning back to us, an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "I guess it didn't go well."

I do a so-so motion with my hand.

Moira and I then follow Logan to the rest of the group, curious as to what Sean Cassidy wants to say. And what Rogue's feelings are right now.

A few minutes later we arrive in a lobby, the group standing around a man in his mid-thirties to early forties. He's wearing a white dress shirt and black tie under a trench coat, like a stereotypical detective. He has red hair and thick sideburns, once he sees us, he claps his hands to get everyone's attention.

"Now that everyone's here I can begin. The name's Sean Cassidy, but I guess ye already knew that, huh?" Sean begins.

"Yeah, we're with the X-Men, and we're here to recruit you. My name's Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops," Scott introduces.

Sean points at Logan and Jean. "I'd guess the two of ye are Wolverine and Marvel Girl, then? Ye got similar builds," They nod. He then looks at everyone else. "I don't recognize anyone else."

"Name's Bobby Drake, Iceman," He then points at me. "That there's Nolan Belmont, also known as Mimic. Everyone else isn't officially a member of the team yet. We're on a trip around the world recruiting mutants, you happened to be the last one on the list."

"What'd you come here for?" Logan interrupts.

Sean leans to Jubilee and Remy. "Someone doesn't know how to have fun, yeah?" He mutters. "I came here to investigate a mutant, this one capable of firing concussive and heat blasts with the help of plant life."

"How the hell does that work?" I ask.

"I dunno," Sean replies.

"Who's this mutant?" Scott asks.

"Me cousin, Thomas Cassidy, he calls himself Black Tom."

"Dope name," Bobby comments.

"Is there a reason you were investigating him?" Jean asks.

"About twelve years ago me wife died in a bombing; I was on a mission for Interpol. What I didn't know was that I had a daughter, she was a few months old at the time. I believe Black Tom took her under his wing, and I don't like that, not one bit," Sean answers.

"Do you know where they are?" I ask.

He nods. "Me home, Cassidy Keep. It's in Ireland."

Logan groans in annoyance. "We were on our way there, now we gotta head back. Better be worth it, Cassidy."

Sean claps Logan on the shoulder, he laughs loudly, louder than anyone I've ever heard before. "Don't worry, boyo, we'll have ourselves a great time. Besides, don't ye want to help reunite a father with his long-lost daughter?"

Logan says nothing as he throws Sean's arm off his shoulder, Sean just has a defiant smirk on his face. Everyone else follows the two, Scott and I at the end of the group, before we leave Moira speaks up.

"It's good seein' him happy again."

Scott and I turn to her. "What do you mean?" Scott asks.

"After his wife's death he's been down. We slowly watched him get better, after learnin' about his daughter his mood's skyrocketed," Moira answers.

"Gotta say, Doc, you're really good at understanding mutants, what, are you one too?" I joke.

She begins to cough. "Oh, sorry about that, must be somethin' in me throat. Don't let me hold you. Good luck! Tell Charles I said hi!"

Scott and I wave goodbye before following the group, heading towards the _Blackbird._

* * *

Tress are great, most of the time. When they give shade, or provide oxygen, great. When their branches strangle your jet, not so great. About an hour later we arrived in Ireland, but before Scott could even begin the landing process some super trees wrapped themselves around the _Blackbird_, threatening the ship's integrity.

"SLIM!" Logan shouts, hanging on to his seat.

Scott and Jean frantically press buttons, nothing happens. "I'm trying!" Scott looks back. "Shiro! Nolan! Get rid of those branches!"

The ramp lowers, a tendril snakes in. It doesn't get far thanks to Bobby freezing it. Carefully getting up Shiro and I head towards the ramp, looking out of the corner of my eye I see Sean standing with us. He smirks before jumping, he grabs his coat and spreads out, reminding me of gliding animals, he then shouts, creating soundwaves that help him fly.

Shiro and I look at each other surprised. We then jump off the ramp, I swap to my Shaman powers. Shiro hits the tendrils with his fire blasts, which seem to be the most effective. My powers include pant control, I wasn't able to make the tendrils go away entirely, but I could hold them back, letting Shiro hit them.

Surprisingly enough, Sean's powers seem to be the least effective. His sonic screams don't do much against the tree tendrils, yeah, they recoil, but they aren't destroyed outright.

We destroy enough for the _Blackbird _to escape, once it does, we feel a psychic link be created. _"How are the tendrils looking?"_ Jean asks.

_"Saints preserve me! What is this?" _Sean asks, avoiding a tendril.

_"It's a telepathic link, with it we can talk to each other without the enemy knowing our plans. Or so you could add input," _Jean answers.

_"You're lucky I can regenerate," _Logan warns.

_"I wish I could, pretty sure my eardrums are shot," _Jubilee says.

We hear Sean mentally laugh guiltily. _"Sorry about that one. Shoulda warned ye. WOAH!" _He narrowly avoids another tendril, Shiro then shoots it down.

I fire mystical bolts at another two tendrils, causing them to fall due to the lack of structure. _"Hey, Sean! I swear you said your cousin could only shoot blasts of energy, so I gotta ask: The fuck is this?" _I fire a bolt of lightning at another tendril. _"And how many of these damn things are there?"_

_ "I dunno. To both of those questions," _He looks around. _"Where's yer jet?"_

Shiro and I look around. Yeah, where is the jet?

A whistling noise can be heard. Looking up I see a blur of silver and dark blue falling rapidly. It passes by us, and I swear I saw Piotr falling with Kurt on his back. We hear a 'BAMF' sound, and the smell of brimstone bombards my nose. I feel a weight on my back, looking over my shoulder I see a smirking Kurt hanging on my back.

"_Guten_ _tag_," Kurt says cheekily.

"Was that Piotr?" I ask.

A large boom goes off, a giant cloud of dirt and debris comes flying from Cassidy Keep.

"Ja," Kurt answers. "Ve should go help."

"We should. You ready? It's gonna be one hell of a drop," I warn.

Kurt's smirk grows, sharp canines on show. Really adds to his demon aesthetic, which is mad fucking cool. "Vhy drop when we can 'BAMF'?"

Next thing I know I'm in some dark dimension, after blinking again I find myself behind Piotr, holding back some tendrils.

"Comrade! Come, do not let me hog all the glory, yes?"

I swap to the powerset I got from Rahne—Which I need a name for—and transform into my werewolf form. I jump on one of the tendrils and tear at it.

While I do this another burst of brimstone hits my nose, this time more potent due to my enhanced senses. A blast of ice stops a tendril from behind me as it attempts to stab me.

"Man, the Lorax is gonna be pissed at us after today, huh?" Bobby jokes.

Another 'BAMF' Logan jumps at another tendril and slashes wildly at it. Remy throws some cards, destroying some tendrils. Kurt teleports again.

_"So, what's the plan? Land the _Blackbird _somewhere else and have Kurt 'port everyone to the battle?" _I ask.

_"Not everyone. We'll have some of us investigate the inside of the keep, Kitty, Rogue, Psylocke, and me, actually. The rest of you will keep Black Tom busy," _Scott orders.

_"I should be in the search team,"_ Sean counters. _"I know the house better than any of ye. And trust me, tis a big house."_

_ "What about Black Tom? He's your cousin, and with your screaming he has to know you're here," _Betsy says.

_"Half of Ireland has to know he's here,_" Logan mentally grumbles.

"I know ye're here, Seanny-Boy!" Black Tom shouts.

Sean mentally sighs. _"Guess I'll deal with me cousin. When you find her, please tell her Daddy's here, alright?"_

_"Of course,_" Betsy affirms.

The tendrils all stop, Shiro and Sean land next to us. Kurt teleports Jean and Jubilee with us.

The ground rumbles, a giant wooden tendril moves around, stopping just in front of us. On it is a man around Sean's age. He has black hair, a black mustache, and a black goatee, he also has blue eyes. He wears a mainly black suit with red designs. The bottom half is completely black, and his top half has a red symbol that kind of reminds me of a battle axe, he has red gloves, and a black belt with red outlines, a red dot in the center.

"What, I've been chasin' ye all this time, and now ye decide to stop at home? What's yer game, Thomas?" Sean demands.

"No game, Seanny-Boy. I'm just tired of havin' ye on me ass, I mean, get over it! Theresa's been with me for years now, I don't think she'd even know ye're her daddy," Black Tom taunts.

"Theresa. Maeve always liked that name," Sean mutters.

_"You weren't wrong Sean, you've got a biiig house," _Jubilee says over the link.

_"How're things looking for you guys?" _Jean asks.

Sean continues the conversation to give us more time.

_"Betsy's currently looking for her. It might take a minute, hold on guys,"_ Scott says.

_"I can hold on for however long ye need for Theresa,"_ Sean says. He then points at Black Tom dramatically. "X-Men! Execute!"

We all stare at him, the only sound we hear is that of nature. Sean's determined look becomes sheepish really quick. "Ye don't have a battle cry, do ye?"

"No," We all say.

Tendrils erupt from the ground below us, sending some of us flying all over the place. I recover on one and run along it, catching Jubilee before she hits it. She gives me a nod of thanks before blasting the tendril we're standing on. She jumps out of my arms and runs towards him, avoiding tendrils as she does.

He sees her coming. He blasts the ground, creating more tendrils that erupt from under her. Black Tom narrowly dodges a blast of ice from Bobby, he then quickly puts up a wood wall, protecting him from rocks thrown by Jean.

"Dammit. He's just one guy, how's he holding us back so well?" I mutter in anger.

"Sinister was just one guy and he swatted us aside like flies," Jean unhelpfully adds. She telepathically turns some tendrils heading for us into a knot.

"Sinister has clones," I say.

"Still technically one guy though," Jean counters my counter.

I-wha-no. While I reboot the ground below us ruptures, sending Jean and I flying in the air, she stops us with her telekinesis. We land away from the battle, looking it over from a wall of Cassidy Keep. "Question: Sean's screams seem destructive, so why aren't they working against Black Tom's tendrils?"

"I'm not sure. MOVE!" Jean telekinetically pushes me aside, a boulder flung by one of the wooden tendrils slams into where we just were. _"Guys, how's the search for Theresa going?"_

We wait for a minute, which worries us. _"Guys?" _Jean asks again.

_"She's definitely her father's daughter," _Scott says.

_"What do ye mean?"_ Sean asks.

_"She's stopping us from reaching her with her own sonic scream," _Betsy says.

_"How do we not hear her?" _Remy wonders.

A high-pitched noise becomes louder, eventually the walls of the keep burst open, Rogue, Betsy, Scott, and Kitty come flying out the hole. Jean and I look over the edge to see a red-headed girl around my age as the source of the scream.

She uses her powers to float down, the fight stops, Sean looks at her in shock.

She wears a green and yellow suit, with wings for gliding under her arms. She glares at the four who were looking for her. "Why do ye want to take me from me uncle?"

"Theresa?" Sean gasps.

She looks up at him, her eyes widen in surprise before narrowing. "How do ye know me name?"

"T-Theresa, it's me, yer daddy," Sean explains.

He ignores Black Tom and slowly walks towards her, as he does Black Tom sends a tendril flying towards him, Piotr intercepts it. Another tendril is sent by Black Tom, it's then frozen by Bobby.

As Sean walks towards his daughter the team intercept any tendrils sent by Black Tom. Jean bumps shoulders with me. She points at Black Tom. "He's busy dealing with everyone else, let's takin him down."

She and I share a now similar smirk. "You got a plan?"

Her eyes glow purple. "Mental assault?"

I activate my telepathy; my eyes begin to glow purple. We hold hands and turn to Black Tom, currently busy with the rest of the team. "Mental assault."

We attack his mind with a strong blast of telepathic energy. Black Tom grabs his head in agony and screams in pain before blacking out, the tendrils all falling down.

Boom. We won.

A sonic scream hits Sean point blank, courtesy of Theresa.

Guess we haven't won yet.

The others are behind Sean, and due to the scream, they're currently pinned down, Logan and Kurt especially.

Strangely enough, Sean seems to just be annoyed, he's barely holding his ground, but the scream doesn't seem to be doing anything to him. He grabs Theresa by the shoulders and shouts at her normally, although her screams drown out his words.

Realizing talking, or shouting, won't get him anywhere Sean turns to the telepathic link. _"Please, show her I'm tellin' the truth."_

_ "No problem," _Jean and I reply at the same time.

We get all of the memories regarding Theresa, her mother, and what Black Tom did, and put it in her head. Slowly the shouting dissipates before stopping entirely. The others slowly get up, although Logan stays on the ground, his hands over his ears.

Theresa and Sean tear up before hugging each other, Sean caresses her hair as he mutters into her hair.

Jean grabs me in a side hug. "Look at us, reuniting a family."

"I think we did good," I reply.

"I think so too. Come on, let's go to the rest of the team," Jean says.

We fly down to the others, Logan's hitting the side of his head. "So, we did pretty good. If I say so myself," Scott boasts.

"We? We got our asses handed to us. If anything, we should praise these two for taking him out and saving our eardrums," Betsy looks at Logan as he tries to regain his hearing. "Well, almost all of us."

"Um, e-excuse me."

We turn around to see Sean standing behind his daughter, hands on her shoulders and a proud smile on his face. Theresa bites her lip, looks to the side, and nervously rubs her arm. "Sorry about blastin' all of ye with me scream. I promise I won't do it again."

"Think nothing of it," Kurt says. He walks up to her and holds his hand out, a disarming smile on his face. "Kurt Vagner."

Theresa steps back a little in shock and just stares at Kurt before looking at his hand. He awkwardly shifts on his feet. Theresa notices his discomfort. "Oh, no! It's not how ye look (Well, kind of), it's just…how do I shake it?"

Sean laughs loudly as he steps forward and shakes Kurt's hand. "Like this!" He looks at their hands. "Hm, it is weird, but still normal," He steps aside. "Yer turn."

Theresa shakes his hand; she smiles at the odd sensation. She then goes around shaking most of our hands, avoiding Logan as he continues the mission to regain his hearing. I see a light blush on her face once she reaches me. Probably 'cause she's tired. After all, holding down these guys with a continuous shout must be tiring.

"H-hi," She mutters.

"Hi! Name's Nolan Belmont. His name's Logan, by the way," I reply.

"WHAT!" Logan shouts, startling Piotr and Jubilee slightly.

"He has super hearing," I stage whisper.

She giggles. I notice Sean looking at me with a raised eyebrow. I give him my own raised eyebrow. What bro? He just shakes his head and stands behind Theresa, clapping a hand on her shoulder. "So, I'm goin' to America with the X-Men here. Would ye like to come with?"

Theresa nods. "Of course. I mean, me uncle was a maniac, and with him outta the way I got no one else to stay with."

The _Blackbird _lands at the edge of the keep. Scott, Logan, and Shiro walk towards it. "Wait," Piotr calls out, standing over Black Tom. "What do we do with him?"

"We've got power dampening collars on board. Just bring him along, we'll give him to SHIELD," Scott answers.

Piotr nods and picks him up. We then follow and enter the _Blackbird_, the jet flies up vertically, points westward, and begins the flight back home.

As we fly Jubilee turns to Sean. "So, you got a codename?"

"Jesus, Jubilee, at least let the guy acclimatize," Kitty wearily says.

"Actually yes," Sean says, surprising us all. "Banshee."  
"Ooh! And I have one as well!" Theresa says. "Siryn."

Sean smiles proudly. "I've known ye for all of ten minutes and I'm already prouder than I've ever been."

Theresa just smiles at her father before looking at us. "So, ye're really the X-Men?"

"Yeah. I'm Cyclops, Jean's Marvel Girl, Bobby's Iceman, Logan's Wolverine, and Nolan's Mimic," Scott answers.

"And the rest of ye?"

"We're like your dad, we aren't officially on the team. But my codename's Shadowcat," Kitty replies.

"Jubilee's both my name and codename."

"Gambit's mine," Remy looks at Rogue, she doesn't say anything as she's deep in thought. "Like Jubilee her codename and name are de same, Rogue."

"Psylocke."

"Colossus."

"Well, it definitely fits," Sean comments.

"You can call me the Amazing Nightcrawler!" Kurt does some acrobatic movements and jumps around on the seats, avoiding our heads with skill and finesse.

"That's a long codename," Theresa says.

"Amazing's more of an adjective, actually," Kurt says.

"You can call me Sunfire," Shiro mutters.

Bobby turns his seat around to look at Sean. "Hey, Sean, quick question: why were you immune to Theresa's screams? On top of that, why were your screams shit against Black Tom's wood tendrils?"

Theresa glares at him for insulting her father's ability during the fight. Sean puts his hand over hers as a calming gesture. "Dr. MacTaggert's talked to me about that actually. She believes it's some sort of genetic resistance. Me powers don't work so well against his and vice versa. The same for Theresa."

"That's so cool," Jubilee whispers in awe. She shakes her head and points at Sean. "Wait, you said BT's powers were him shooting wood blasts, those weren't wood blasts."

Sean's jovial look becomes serious. "Ye got me there, lass. I don't know why his powers increased, maybe he's unlocked more abilities?" He looks at a door in the side of the jet, on the other side of it is an unconscious Black Tom. "I'll ask him when he wakes up."

"Oh! We have a missed call from the school," Jean calls out. She then tries to call the school again, but the call doesn't go through. We all share worried looks as Jean tries three more times, they all fail.

"Everyone, strap in," Scott simply says.

The _Blackbirds _speed increases.

It still doesn't help the pit of worry slowly growing in my stomach.

* * *

After an hour we arrive at the mansion. Or, what's left of it.

Metal rebar is all over the place, the ground's torn up, and what's left of the building has a giant hole running through it, from one end of the building to the other. Scott hurriedly begins the landing process.

Once the _Blackbird _lands in the hangar we rush out to find the others waiting for us. Damn, they're banged up pretty bad. Warren's wings are drooped down, an icepack on his head. Hank has his arm wrapped in bandages. Ororo's barely standing, even with John's help. John looks disoriented, and I'm not sure if it's because of damage he took or if he can't believe what happened.

Wait. "Where's Forge?" I ask. We look around, hoping to see him somewhere else.

"T-they took him," Ororo mutters.

"Who?" Logan asks.

"The Brotherhood," John says.

"They attacked now!?" Scott shouts in shock. "Where's the Professor?"

"They took him too," John answers.

Scott kicks some rubble aside before heading towards the elevator. Jean walks to Warren and helps him get up, supporting him as he stands. Bobby creates some ice chairs for Ororo and John to sit on, which they pretty much drop into.

The others stand around awkwardly as I walk up to Hank. "Who did this?"

A holographic screen pops up, showing footage of the attack. The school began to shake violently, no doubt thanks to Lance. As the students rush to the elevator to the safe room everything metal in the school begins to rise, including some of the rebar holding the school up. The earthquake stops, it then continues. Wait, not it doesn't. The camera changes, showing a brown and orange blur running through the school, destroying everything in its way. The footage stops there.

The screen then changes, showing the pictures of the people who attacked the school. Quicksilver, Lance, Mystique, Mortimer, Mastermind, a blond haired guy, his picture shows him firing blue blasts of energy at Warren, some brown-haired girl wearing scarlet red with a weird head piece on, a green haired girl with a green head piece on, and a huge, blond feral looking guy. His picture causes Logan to growl.

"They've expanded their numbers," Bobby says. "Who's this guy?" He points at the feral guy.

"Victor Creed, also known as Sabretooth," Logan answers.

"Wait, you know this guy?" Bobby asks.

"His name is Creed?" Kurt also asks.

"Yeah, that Creed. He and I have history," Logan growls.

"And the big ass guy?" I ask.

"No idea. He's one of the more dangerous ones, though," Hank says.

John leans forward in his seat, groaning in pain as he does. "He's strong as hell, and fast. I don't think we can stop him, we tried everything we could. Nothing worked."

"Um, hi. Yeah, my name's Katherine Pryde, you can call me Kitty, or Shadowcat, I guess. But, uh, what are we supposed to do?" Kitty points at the rest of the recruits.

"Oh! How rude of me! My name is Henry McCoy, you can call me Hank, or Beast. You don't-"

"Get ready," Scott interrupts. "They took the Professor and Forge, we gotta save them as fast as possible."

"But they don't even have suits, and I don't think we're trained for this," Theresa says.

"You don't have to Theresa. We came to recruit your father, not you, but thank you for coming," Scott turns to the others. "You guys have been through a lot in the few months we've been together. But if you want to really be X-Men you have to fight the Brotherhood, it's an inevitability. So, what do you say?"

They all look at each other, after a moment Sean steps forward. "Ye can count on us. But uh, me daughter's right, we don't have suits. Hell, we don't know where they took yer friends."

"Asteroid M," Hank says.

Scott and I look at each other. "That's what we got from Mastermind a long time ago," I say.

"Indeed. Magneto was sure to tell us where they were taking our friends. One little problem though," Hank begins.

"It's in space," Ororo interrupts.

"And the _Blackbird _isn't built for space travel. Give me a week and it'll basically be like it was born for space," Hank boasts.

"They don't have a week!" Scott shouts.

"Magneto gave us eight days. He says he wants us to have a fair fight as he finally achieves his victory. Dude's a pretentious asshole," John mutters.

"Now what?" Remy asks.

Scott looks them over. "We go to war."

* * *

**Recruitment Arc; complete. Brotherhood Arc; commence.**

**There we go with the end of that arc! Next up is an arc I've been excited about for a while now, and I can't wait to share it with you guys! Also, there were a ton of X-Men characters in this chapter! Most were easy to spot while one was subtly (or not so subtly) referenced, you might know who I'm talking about. And please, tell me how I did regarding the Irish accents, I really don't want to butcher them.**

**And now the next bit of news: This story is indeed going on hiatus, sorry. I just feel like the quality's dropped lately, and I don't have as much time writing the chapters as I used to, hell this chapter and the previous four have all been finished the day I post them, which is something I don't like. I've decided to take the entire month of March off to recuperate, but don't worry, I'll still be working on chapters during the hiatus. And while you wait you can read my DC story **_**The Vitruvian Man**_**! It's great, trust me.**

**That's all from me. Please leave a constructive criticism and remember to stay awesome! See you on April 2****nd****!**


	23. Asteroid M

**Aaand we're back! It's been a while, hasn't it? I've missed you guys, how've you been? I've been great.**

**So, back in the Mimic and Storm chapter 2020 had barely started, and I said something along the lines of the year can only go up if you had a bad start. Well, I'm man enough to admit, I was wrong. Let's hope nothing too crazy happens throughout this whole fiasco. By the way, I found out recently that Pyro's name is pronounced Sinjin! Always thought it was said like it was spelled.**

**I think I'm gonna hop back on _Final Fantasy XIV_. Yeah, I will, it'll be fun. **

**That's enough from me up here, let's get on with the story, yeah?**

* * *

**Asteroid M**

These past few days have been tense, to say the least.

After our return, the students came into the hangar asking what was gonna happen next. Thankfully Hank already had a plan: the student's whose parents were still in their lives would go home, if possible, they'd take some of the less fortunate students with them. Problem was there's more students without homes than with. Thankfully I have a big house. After calling Mom and Dad they were more than willing to take in some of the other kids. Student problems are now sorted out. Mostly.

Theresa was adamantly against leaving, after all, she just met her father. Thankfully Sean was able to explain the situation to her, she's now staying at my place.

For the rest of the day we were making plan on top of plan on what to do next.

The next day Hank and I began to make the suits for everyone else. It's a good thing Kurt and Shiro already have suits, so all we had to do was upgrade them. While we were doing this the others went into the danger room for the first time. Honestly kinda angry I didn't get to see their reactions.

It was the middle of the night when we finished making all of the suits.

The next day we continued planning as the others put on their suits. Kitty, Remy, Rogue, and Jubilee's suits look just like how they described back at Germany.

The bottom half of Kitty's suit is black with golden boots. The top half is black on the outside with a yellow-gold inside, the shoulders stick out a bit, like Vegeta's armor when he first appeared, and she has yellow gloves. The X symbol is on her belt.

The bottom half of Remy's suit is also black with silver boots that reach up to his knees, black X's on the knees. The sides of the suit are silver and black while the chest down to his abs is purple. He also has the stylistic black circle that breaks on his chest to make a purple X. He also has a red belt buckle with an X on it. He has the same cowl as Jean, Scott, and Warren. He has gloves that are fingerless on the thumbs and index and pinky fingers with his trench coat over it all. Remy also uses a staff that can channel his powers so that it doesn't explode, instead whatever he hits with the staff gets hit with an explosion.

Rogue's suit is primarily green and yellow. The outside of her suit is green while the inside is yellow. She also has the stylistic circle that breaks into a yellow X on the left side of her chest, knee-high yellow boots, and yellow gloves, a brown leather belt with a red X hanging diagonally around her waist. She wears a green headband and her bomber jacket over the top, two X symbols stitched into the shoulders.

Jubilee wears black knee-high boots, the rest of the bottom part of her suit is blue. The top half is pink with black designs, a yellow X in the center of her chest. The shoulders and her gloves are pink while the sleeves are black. She still wears her pink glasses and her yellow trench coat, an X symbol stitched on the back.

Piotr's suit is red and yellow. He wears red boots; his pants have yellow knees and are red on top. The top half of his costume is a red inside with yellow outsides, the shoulders stick out as well. He wears red, yellow, then red again wristbands.

Betsy's suit is pretty much a one-piece dark purple lightly armored swimsuit with thigh high boots and shoulder high gloves, some bands on each limb. A white X across her chest and a red sash around her waist. Her suit catches Warren's attention.

Sean's suit is almost exactly like Theresa's. Dark green pants, yellow boots, and a dark green and bright yellow top, the yellow is in a V style with high collars, a black X in the center of his chest. Under his arms are yellow and dark green wings, the pattern looks like a target honestly. I don't say that to him, of course.

Once the costumes are complete Hank and I finally put our full attention on making the _Blackbird _space capable.

Easier said than done.

It takes a while. Hank points out that it's entirely possible we could get it done in five days instead of seven if we pull all-nighters, but Scott shoots that idea down, saying we need to have all our energy if we're going to rescue Forge and the Professor.

As Hank and I upgrade the _Blackbird _the others continue their training, getting used to fighting alongside each other. Whenever possible they would help upgrade the jet, Piotr and John especially.

Thanks to Warren's connections we were able to get materials needed to make the jet space capable, although we didn't get them through…traditional means.

On one particular night we all sit around the table within the dining hall of the school, some holographic screens showing the profiles of the known members of the Brotherhood and the footage of the new ones.

"These are the original members of the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy: Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Mystique, Destiny, Mastermind, Blob, and Pyro," Scott begins.

Bobby groans in annoyance. "Ugh, Pyro, I hate that guy."

A guy around fifteen to sixteen years old is shown. He wears yellow boots, red pants, the top of his suit is yellow, with a red chest piece over it, a red and orange flame on it. He wears a cowl, two protective lenses over his eyes. His arms are red, except for the shoulders, elbows, and gloves, which are yellow. A red tank is on his back, two tubes from the tank run over to the end of his wrists.

"Real name, St. John Allerdyce. His powers let him control flame, although he can't create it, so he has flamethrowers attached to his back," Scott explains. "Next we have Blob."

A giant sphere in the shape of a man. He wears a navy-blue tank top and shorts, he also wears yellow boots, yellow wristbands, and a yellow belt.

"He sure does look like one," Betsy comments.

"Vait, I've heard of him, he used to be a part of a carnival, ja?" Kurt says.

"Yes. His powers are mainly superhuman durability and strength. He can also absorb any physical impact, meaning psychic or projectile attacks are our best bet. He's also able to alter his mass to become even heavier and next to impossible to move. Next up is Mastermind," Scott continues.

"This guy. He's fun," I add.

"Nolan and I have run into him earlier this year. Jason Wyngarde. He's a telepath, but he excels in creating mental illusions more than any other telepathic skill. If we have to split up be sure to have a telepath on your team," Scott says.

"Mystique, otherwise known as Raven Darkholme and a whole bunch of other names. Some of us have had run ins with her, so we know her powers, shapeshifting. She's extremely dangerous and has combat skills that make her one of the deadlier members of the Brotherhood," Scott says.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Rogue shrink in her seat, a look of pain clear in her eyes.

The next picture is of a woman in a full two different shades of blue suit, a golden mask shaped like a face over her face. The body of her suit and inside of her cape are a light shade of blue while everything else is dark blue, including the helmet that extends up, it reminds me of the stereotypical alien heads honestly.

"Next up is Destiny, otherwise known as Irene Adler-"

"Irene?" Rogue wonders aloud.

"You know her?" Scott asks.

"Yeah, she was mah…foster mother? Her and Mystique were together, long before they took me. She disappeared a year ago, Ah haven't seen her since," Rogue answers.

"Well, last time we fought the Brotherhood, Destiny escaped, I think Magneto wanted her to do something else," Jean says.

"What're her powers?" Jubilee asks.

"She's a precog, meaning she can see into the future. It's annoying, to be completely honest. Thankfully she isn't the best at fighting, but she's still dangerous, so don't have your guard down when fighting her," Scott warns.

"And Mystique's always nearby, so be extra careful," Logan adds.

An attractive girl around sixteen years old is next shown. She wears a black and scarlet red suit. A cape starting from her shoulders and a scarlet red headpiece over her head.

"Scarlet Witch, or Wanda Maximoff, the daughter of Magneto. Her powers are…confusing. She can fire red bolts of energy, and she's capable of low-level magic, and can affect luck. She's one of the more dangerous members as well," Scott says.

Then comes the asshole himself. He looks to be the same age as his sister, although he has silver hair. His suit is blue and silver, and he has an insufferable smirk on his face.

"Then we've got her twin brother, Quicksilver, real name, Pietro Maximoff. He was in Germany, that blue and silver blur? That was him. He has superspeed, but he's also arrogant and eager to prove himself, use that to your advantage," Scott points out.

A tall, muscular man is then shown. He wears armor, the bottom half is red with purple and red boots, the inside of the thighs is purple, and a purple belt separates the top and bottom half of his armor. The top half is red with some purple designs on the sides, a purple cape on his back. He wears an interesting red and purple helmet.

"And finally, the big man himself, Erik Lehnsherr. Magneto. His powers are of magnetism. Hell, he calls himself the Master of Magnetism. He's capable of doing a lot, even the iron in your blood isn't safe from his power, Piotr, Logan, stay away from him," Scott warns.

"Don't gotta tell us twice," Logan says.

"Da," Piotr agrees.

"Kitty, Kurt, anything on Lance and Mortimer?" Scott asks.

"Right. Lance Alvers, not sure what he's calling himself now. His powers let him create earthquakes no matter where he is. He does get angry easily, so use that how you will," Kitty explains.

"I've been wondering something: they're in an asteroid, right? What use is Lance gonna be then? I mean, if he goes all out chances are, he's gonna space all of us, and I'm not sure any of us can survive in space," I say.

"I can," Piotr says, raising his hand.

We all look at him in shock. "Really?" Remy asks.

He nods. "Da. In my steel form I do not need to eat or breath, I've tested it once when I went fishing with my father. Although, it is entirely possible the same cannot be said for space."

Scott nods in astonishment. "I think I have a plan for you," He looks at me. "And you," He then turns to Kurt. "Alright, what about Mortimer?"

"Well, he is called Toad for a reason. His powers make give him the abilities of a toad, he can leap, stick to walls, is incredibly athletic, and has a tongue he can shoot out, although I don't know how far," Kurt says.

"Gross," Jean says.

"Alright, those are the guys we know, what about the others, like that massive runaway train?" Bobby says, pointing at the footage.

Sean snaps his fingers once the camera focuses on the living tank. "Ah, yes! I knew he looked familiar! His name's Cain Marko, he worked with Thomas a lot a couple a' years ago, goes by the Juggernaut,"

"What're his powers?" Scott asks.

"As ye can tell, he's superhumanly powerful, and when he starts movin' nothin' can stop him. Trust me, I've tried," Sean informs us.

"I do see where Sean comes from," Hank says. "No matter what we did, our aptly named Juggernaut just did not stop."

"Okay, that's him. What about the green girl, or the blue energy guy?" Bobby asks, pointing at their section of the footage.

The girl wears a suit that's two shades of green. Honestly, it looks exactly like Scarlet Witch's, just green. The legs of her suit are light green, while the rest is dark green. Interestingly enough her hair is also green.

"The girl is the one I find more concerning. Her powers are extremely similar to Magneto's, she is capable of magnetism to an immense degree, although, not as well as he," Hank says.

"That's not all," John chimes in. "She and Scarlet Witch were fighting nearby each other, I heard Scarlet Witch call her sister."

Logan groans in annoyance. "Meaning Magneto has a third kid. Great."

"And she has magnetism powers too, so, stay away from her also, yeah?" John says.

The guy is then shown. His suit is pitch black, the only color being the silver circle on his chest and the three silver arches on his cowl that go from the back of his head to meet in the center of his forehead.

"The boy on the other hand is interesting. His powers seem to be controlled by the circular device on his chest, with it he fires a powerful blue blast of energy that can either act as a laser and cut through steel or be a concussive force," Hank says.

Bobby looks at the footage, leaning his face on one of his hands as he takes a drink of soda. "His powers kinda remind me of yours, Scott."

"Really?" Scott asks. "I don't see the resemblance."

"There's still Victor Creed," Logan growls.

The footage finally focuses on the final person.

This guy's huge. I mean, in the recording he's crouching most of the time, but you can just tell he's a massive guy when he stands up straight. His suit's golden-yellow, the top half has some brown designs. Two brown claw marks on either side and a brown V from his neck to his stomach. He also has a giant fur collar that starts goes along the V, starting at his chest.

"Any relation to Graydon Creed?" Jean asks.

"Yeah, he's his kid. Mystique's the mom," Logan says.

Bobby spits out his drink in shock before coughing violently, John slaps his back. "Thanks, John. Hold up, how the hell is that," He points at Creed then pulls up a picture of Graydon Creed and puts them side to side. "Related to this!?"

"And there's the fact that Mystique is his mother. I find that hard to believe, she doesn't seem like the type to make a good mother," Kurt comments.

"She was…okay. She did her best, but now I see she just wanted to sway me to join the Brotherhood," Rogue says.

"Possible. Logan, what are Creed's powers?" Scott asks.

"His powers are like mine, low-level superhuman strength, superhuman senses. He's got some sharp fangs and claws for nails. He's also got an accelerated regenerative healing factor. So, if you see him, don't hold back. If you do, that'll be the end of you," Logan warns.

"Right, so. We've got Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Mystique, Mastermind, Blob, Pyro, Juggernaut, blue energy boy, green haired Magneto girl, and Victor Creed. Did we miss anyone?" I say.

"Creed calls himself Sabretooth," Logan says.

"Sabretooth. Nice."

"When they left, Magneto said there was more of them on Asteroid M, we're not sure how many though," Warren says.

"Got it. We need to prepare for everything, tomorrow we'll make our plans. Dismissed," Scott gets up and heads to who knows where.

Ororo and Jean get up together and head to Ororo's garden. Hm, don't know why, but 'Ro seems to be really messed up about this. Why?

_"She and Forge started dating a little over a month ago," _Jean tells me.

_"Oh. Well, even more reason to get our friends back then," _I reply. The connection then cuts off.

Everyone else goes to do their own thing. As he's leaving Hank puts his hand on my shoulder. "I'll be in the hangar, double checking our progress. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Hank," I reply.

Now it's just us younger kids. Bobby, Kitty, Remy, Rogue, Jubilee, and Kurt.

"Wow," Jubilee breaths in awe. "We're really going to fight the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy. Gotta say, one hell of a first week here, I bet we made a new record," She has a victorious smirk.

"Actually, Nolan holds that record," Bobby says.

Jubilee looks at me with narrowed eyes, the others do too with less narrowed eyes. "Explain," She demands.

"After my first day here Mister Sinister attacked. So, unless the school's attacked before someone even gets through the school day, I hold the record," I puff my chest and slap it a couple of times.

"You shouldn't be proud of that," Kurt says.

I deflate. "Yeah, you're right," I look at the holograms of the Brotherhood, a smile growing on my face. "You know, I can see one positive coming out of this."

"What's that, mon ami?" Remy asks.

"I get a fuck ton of powers out of this."

"That you do," Kitty hugs me, it takes a moment for me to compute things, but once I do, I hug back. "Goodnight, Nol. Goodnight guys."

Eventually everyone else but Rogue leaves, leaving the two of us alone in the dining room. I guess she wants to talk about Muir Island.

She nervously rubs her arm as she looks anywhere but me. "Nolan, about what happened at Muir Island," She sighs in annoyance before standing straight and looking me in the eyes. "What do ya mean, "Ah don't want control"?"

Right. That. I take a thinker's pose as I think up how to come at this. Got it. I snap my fingers and look at her. "When'd your powers activate? And what were you doing?"

"Well, Ah was kissing a boy, Cody. Mah powers activated then. For a week Ah had his memories, it was awful," She answers.

"I see. That leads me to my next question: did you want to kiss Cody?" I ask.

She blushes and steps back in shock. "W-what? What does that have to do with anything!?"

I walk forward and put my hands on her shoulders. "Rogue. Rogue, Rogue, Rogue. C'mon, we're both adults here, we can have a conversation about our love lives without it being awkward, yeah?"

She gives me a blank look. "Nolan, how old are you?"

"Thirteen. Or fourteen, maybe. What day is it?"

"It's November eighth."

"Holy shit, I turn fourteen in three days," I shake my head. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"Ah'm fourteen. We aren't adults for another four years. Your argument's invalid," She says.

"Your trying to get me off track, but it won't work," I get a serious face again. "Look, let me ask again. Did you want to kiss Cody?"

Her eyes look between me and the ground for a bit, eventually she looks at me. "No. Not really. Ah mean, he's cute, but that wasn't what Ah wanted," Her eyes widen in shock. "Oh, mah God. Are you thinkin' my powers are a defense mechanism?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking. Look, I'm gonna go to sleep, you should to. If you wanna talk tomorrow morning, then you know where to find me. Goodnight, Rogue," I quickly hug her before turning around.

"Yeah," She whispers. "Goodnight."

* * *

The next morning, we all come back to the dining room, making plans of attack. "Do we know where this Asteroid M is?" Piotr asks.

Hank shows a holographic display of the world, the moon nearby. A red circle is seen between the two, the words "Asteroid M" next to it. "Currently the Brotherhood's base of operations floats over the Indian Ocean, although recent data shows the base is moving."

"Which way?" Jubilee asks.

"That's what concerns me the most. If my data is correct, then Asteroid M should be above the north pole by the end of next week," Hank answers.

"Is Magneto really that powerful? I mean, Asteroid M looks like it's barely in Earth's orbit, how's he gonna affect the north pole?" I wonder aloud.

"The magnetic field of the poles is far more powerful than anywhere else on the planet. It is entirely possible Magneto's powers will be far greater when the base reaches its target destination," Hank theorizes.

"Then we've gotta stop it while it's still above the Indian Ocean," Scott states. He looks around at the team. "Bobby, Kitty, Jubilee, Shiro, and Kurt, I want the five of you to take out the asteroid's engine system, can I count on you?"

They all nod, Bobby stands in front of the group, a rare, but welcome, serious look on his face. "Of course, Slim."

"Logan and Betsy, I want the two of you to look for Forge and the Professor. With your skills you can easily sneak through the base, and your powers would let you find them easier than most of us can," Scott orders.

Logan grunts.

Betsy nods. "You can count on us."

"And the eleven of us will take on Magneto and the Brotherhood," I finish.

Scott nods. "That's the plan," He then looks between Hank and me. "How're the upgrades on the _Blackbird _looking?"

Hank wipes his glasses clean as he answers. "Things are going as planned, two days from now she will be space capable."

"Yeah, and the help from the Fantastic Four and the materials from Worthington Industries have been great in helping," I add.

The TV in the recreational area turns on. We all get up to see what's going on. On the screen we see Magneto sitting on a throne, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch on either side. "Greetings, Earth, my name is Magneto, and this is a message to my mutant brothers and sisters," He begins.

"This world, this Earth, has been tainted for far too long by the scourge known as humanity. It is time for us to take the planet, for us to become the rightful species of our beautiful home. It is time for us to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!" He gets up and marches towards the camera. "They have built weapons to suppress us, to force us to hide. To kill our children. Well, I say no more! As a warning to any human who attempts to attack let me show you a fraction of my power."

We feel everything shake, all the metal in the building rumbles in place. Logan shakes violently as he actually floats off the ground. Not by much, maybe only a inch or two, but it's still noticeable. Eventually the shaking stops.

Magneto lowers his arm and continues. "By the end of next week, the world will be drastically changed, for the better. Magneto out." The TV turns off.

We stand around in silence, absorbing what Magneto just announced.

Eventually Sean breaks the silence. "He's a dramatic one, isn't he?"

"Da. I cannot wait to knock some sense into him," Piotr agrees.

"Uh, big guy? He can control metal, remember? I mean, did you already forget what just happened?" Kitty points out.

He smirks as he flexes. "I do not need to be in my metal form to cause damage, Katya."

Scott steps back. "We need more training. C'mon, to the danger room, we've got to work on team synergy."

We spend the rest of the day training. It's a bitch.

* * *

One. More. Day.

That's all we need, then it's off to space for the X-Men. Man, I can't wait to tell Peter, Gwen, and Harry all about my adventures, I mean, I'm not really sure if secret identities even matter for superhero teams. The Fantastic Four went public immediately and the Avengers all have public identities. So, sooner or later our identities have to be public, right? And when they are, I'm totally gonna rub it in Peter's face that I went to space before he did.

A small metal bar hits me over my head, taking me out of my daydream. I look over to see Hank mischievously smiling. "You know, if we don't get this done then we won't be able to go to space, correct?"

I rub my head and chuckle as I use some of the machines to move the heavier machinery. "Yeah, yeah, I got it, Hank," I carefully insert the important machinery into the back of the slowly improving _Blackbird_, eventually it locks into place. I then check the computer to see all green lights. "Life support is successfully implemented," I announce.

Hank places a hand on my shoulder. The two of us look at the jet, basking in its glory. "Well done my young friend," He has a far away look in his eyes. "You know, Forge created the _Blackbird _the team was even formed, once he joined, he and I upgraded it together. Great times."

"I've been wondering about that," I begin. "Forge knew the Professor before anyone else, right? So, why wasn't The Five known as The Six?"

Storm steps forward. "Forge had some things to take care of, that's why he wasn't on the team from the start. When the Professor was looking for the new recruits Forge was the first one," Her eyes go white as little tornadoes appear over her arms. "Are you ready?"

"A moment, please," Hank turns to the console and opens the recording app. "Test one, Nolan and I will be in the _Blackbird_ as Ororo creates a vacuum, testing the integrity of the ship and the life support system." Hank turns to me and nods.

The two of us enter the jet. Once the door closes, I see Ororo extend her arms, the console on the dash reports the lack of oxygen. "So far, so good," I comment.

A bag of popcorn appears in front of me and a YouTube video starts playing. It's thirty minutes long. I turn to Hank to see him already eating some of his popcorn. "We are going to be here for quite some time, may as well enjoy it."

And for the next thirty minutes Hank and I watch some random videos, eventually a timer goes off. I telepathically reach out to Ororo. _"Alright, 'Ro, we're looking good here. Thanks for helping us test out the jet."_

_ "Of course," _She replies. The dash reports on the slow return of oxygen.

I decide to say one more thing before cutting off the connection. _"Don't worry, we'll rescue Forge and the Professor, they're tough guys."_

_ "Thank you, Nolan."_ She cuts off the connection instead.

Hank and I move into the next room, which is now the cargo bay, once the ramp lowers, we walk out of the _Blackbird_. Walking into the hangar we see Scott, Jean, and Piotr standing next to Ororo, Jean steps forward. "How're the upgrades looking?"

"Everything is going as planned, all that's left is to add some smaller, but still important, upgrades and then the _Blackbird_ will be space capable," Hank boasts. "Nolan here has been great at helping."

"Right back at ya, Hank," I hold my fist out for a fist bump, which Hank reciprocates.

"Good job you two, we wouldn't be able to do this without you," Scott compliments. "Nolan, remember what I said yesterday?"

I look at Piotr, which brings back the specific memory Scott is talking about. "Yeah, you have a plan for me and Piotr. What is it?"

Jean and Scott have matching smirks. Smirks which I don't like. The last time Jean had that smirk she telekinetically lifted me up to the roof of the school to spy on Ororo, I was nearly blasted by her lightning. Piotr looks between the couple and me, a confused look on his face. He then leans towards me. "Should I be worried?"

I pat his shoulder. "You should be."

"Ororo, we're gonna need your help, too," Scott says. Said girl nods and walks with us.

Once in the danger room Scott messes with some functions. The walls of the room move around and stand in a straight line, one section of the wall after another. I'm really not liking where this is going.

Scott turns to Piotr. "You said you don't need to breath in your metal form?"

"Da. One time I stayed underwater for five hours, the only reason I got up was because my father wanted me to help on the farm. Why?" Piotr asks.

Scott just smirks. "Transform into your metal form, both of you."

Once we do, I feel Jean's telekinetic grip, the two of us are lifted up and put in a position that makes us look like two human shaped metal arrows. Yup, that went where I thought it would.

"You two ready?" Jean asks, an excited glint in her eyes.

I sigh as I raise my arms up in a defensive position. "You're way too excited for this, Red."

"Of course, I am, when else will I ever get to shoot two metal human shaped bullets at an asteroid in orbit? On that note, when will the two of you ever be bullets again?" Jean says, adding her own logic to her reply.

Huh, gotta give her that one, may as well get into i-OOOOH SHIT!

Piotr and I are launched through the tiles, I feel them break under my weight and the power put into the throw by Jean, but it doesn't hurt. We are then stopped an inch from the wall. Thank all the gods for that, I'd rather not have half my body in the danger room, thank you very much.

"Sooo, was it any fun?" Jean asks.

Piotr and I look at her, back at each other, nod, then back to her. We both give her a thumbs up. She squeals and jumps around. She's way to excited about this.

"Why am I here, Scott?" Storm asks.

"Glad you asked. The asteroid's in space, meaning there isn't going to be any air, I want you to create a vacuum, that way we can properly see what's needed for Jean's…opening salvo," Scott answers.

Ororo nods as her eyes turn white, tornadoes once again appearing over her arms. "You would do well to stand behind me."

Piotr looks at the debris. "What will we fly through? The tiles have all been destroyed."

Scott presses some buttons; the pieces of tile all repair themselves. Piotr makes a noise of surprise before moving back into position, I follow him. Once again, we feel Jean's telekinetic grip over us, we are then launched forward, but this time at a much faster speed.

We, uh…get embedded halfway into the opposite wall before Jean stops us.

We get pulled out of the wall as Jean laughs hysterically. I can see an impressed look on Scott's face and a light grin on Ororo's. We're never gonna live this done, are we? Especially with Jean in the equation.

Piotr shifts back to normal as he walks towards Scott. "Scott, I was hoping to call my family, is now a good time?"

Scott thinks for a moment before shaking his head. "No. With the way things are right now we need to focus on this plan."

Piotr narrows his eyes in annoyance. "But I promised them I would call as soon as possible. Illyana is probably worried sick that I haven't called in over a month now."

"Piotr, you can call them _after_ we deal with the Brotherhood, we can't afford any distractions," Scott tries to rationalize.

Piotr marches forward, I get in his way, stopping him from looming over Scott. "I am sorry, did you call my family a "distraction"? They are not distractions! I do this for them! Now, let. Me. Call. Them."

Scott opens his mouth to argue, but Jean places a hand on his shoulder. He looks at her as they have a silent conversation. He sighs before stepping to the side. "Come back when you're done, okay?"

Piotr just nods as he walks by.

"Scott," I begin. "Do we know anything about Asteroid M's make up? Engine room, hangar, control room. Things like that?"

He sighs as he rubs his head. "No, not really. The data we got from Mastermind was only the prototype of a specific room. Honestly it reminded me of Cerebro, which has me worried."

"Which would explain why they took Forge. With his powers Magneto's Cerebro would be made in no time," Ororo chimes in.

"Would being in orbit help his Cerebro in anyway?" I wonder.

Jean hums as she taps her chin with her index finger. "It could. Look at it like this, by being in orbit his Cerebro can scan the Earth at a far faster rate than ours, meaning the Brotherhood could find new mutants before we even know they exist."

"That doesn't sound good," I whisper in shock.

"No, which is why we've gotta stop them, rescue the Professor and Forge, and destroy their base," Scott says, slamming his fist into his open palm.

Piotr then walks into the danger room, a confused look on his face. "You okay, Piotr?" Jean asks.

He jumps, as if he didn't know Jean was there. "Y-yes," He sighs deeply as he slumps in place. "No. I tried calling home many times, but no one picked up. I am worried."

Jean places a comforting hand on his massive arm. "Maybe they're busy? You did live on a farm, after all."

Piotr nods. "Da, but around this time there would always be someone not doing anything, they would be the one to pick up the phone."

"Did you factor in for time zones? I'm pretty sure it's late at night in Russia right now," I say.

He nods again. "At this time my parents are still up," He looks down. "I am worried."

"After this is all over you can go and check it out, alright?" Scott offers.

Piotr slightly bows his head. "Thank you, comrade," He then raises his head and activates his steel form. He looks down at me, a grin on his face. "Well, let us be human bullets, Nolan!"

I activate my steel form and reach out for a fist bump, which he reciprocates. "Yeah, let's."

For the next couple of hours Piotr and I live the dream of becoming human bullets. It's fun. I'd recommend it, but, well, not everyone can transform into an organic steel form now, can they?

It's pretty late. Right now, Rogue, Remy, Jubilee, Kitty, Bobby, Kurt, and I are hanging out in the lounge, playing some Uno to help us calm down. Rogue just put down a plus four card, expecting it to work on me, I just smirk and place down my own plus four, forcing Bobby to draw eight.

As he grumbles in annoyance, I change the color. "Green."

Jubilee glares at me from across the table as it's her turn to play, but she doesn't have a green card, so she draws until she matches. After drawing an obscene amount of cards, she finally places one down. She slams her cards face down as she points accusingly at me. "How do we know you aren't cheating? For all we know you're using your telepathy to know what cards we have," She accuses.

I just give her a blank stare as I point a finger at her cup, a blast of ice freezes it. I'm currently in my ice form. Before we started playing the topic of my powers came up, to alleviate the concerns I promised to stay in my ice form the entire time.

Jubilee picks her cards back up as she hides behind them, the only thing visible being from her eyes up. "Still think your cheating," She grumbles.

"Suuure I am," I sarcastically reply, eye roll included.

"Uno!" Kitty shouts.

We all stare at her in shock. This entire game she has been eerily quiet, guess we know why now. Rogue leans to me before she plays her next card. "You got a reverse?"

"Green. Can you screw her over with a green?"

She smirks. "Yes, I can."

She plays a card, after that I play my reverse card. Rogue plays her plus two, and we all look at Kitty, expecting her to draw two. Instead she puts down a blue plus two, winning the game. Remy and Bobby groan in annoyance, Kurt just chuckles, as Jubilee slams her cards down and takes a giant gulp of her ice-cold soda.

"Damn, shoulda seen that one comin'," Rogue mutters.

We all lean back and relax as Bobby puts the deck away. Looking at the clock I realize we gotta go to sleep soon, Scott wants us to get to Asteroid M immediately after we get ready, so it wouldn't help if we stayed up all night.

"Do you really think we're ready?" Jubilee asks. We all look at her, to our surprise she looks scared, which reminds me that she's the youngest one on the team. Damn, how could I forget that?

Remy places a comforting hand on her shoulder as he has a calming smile on his face. "Don't you worry about a thin, mon ami. As long as we all stick together no one can beat us. Besides, we got two full-fledged X-Men on our side as well. Things are gonna be fine."

"Remy's right," I agree. "Although I never fought the Brotherhood, only some of them. If anything, Bobby's the one you should look to."

Bobby has a rare serious look on his face. "Just be careful with them, especially Magneto, but if you want to retreat then do it, no one's gonna judge you. Hell, Logan least of all."

"Ja, vhat vith his metal skeleton and all. Piotr should do the same," Kurt comments.

"Even without metal skeletons or bodies Magneto's still powerful," Bobby warns. "We have some iron in our blood, he can control even that. So, be careful still, got it?"

They all nod. "Got it."

As we all sit in a comfortable silence Logan comes downstairs and heads straight towards the fridge. Once he opens it, he begins to forage around, looking for beer no doubt. He growls before turning around to face us. "Where's my beer?"

Bobby laughs, much to Logan's annoyance. "Dude, this is a school, we don't have beer here."

"Yeah," I chime in. "Besides, what about the beer in your room? You've got a private fridge, use that one."

"I finished it all."

"Why don't you go out to buy more then?" Jubilee asks.

He grunts as he glares out the window. "Slim wants us to all stay here, something about "unity in adversity". Bullshit if you ask me."

Bobby and I look at each other confused. I then turn and grin at Logan. "Okay, that's great and all, but when have you ever listened to Scott outside of fights?"

Logan smirks at that, but then his smirk becomes a frown. "You'd be right about that, but now I gotta be a role model," He then fixes a pointed glare at Remy and Jubilee. "More for some of you."

Jubilee glares back. "Hey! I'll be fine even if you aren't my role model! Ya got that, hair ball?"

What the hell? We all look at Jubilee as if she lost her mind. We then turn to Logan, scared but interested to say where things will go next. For a while the two glare at each other, neither backing down, eventually Logan lets out a laugh, surprising all of us.

Eventually his laughter dies down as he becomes serious again. "Look, tomorrow's gonna be a trial by fire for most of you. Hell, it might still be one for Nolan, and he's fought Mister Sinister," Logan begins. At the mention of my grandfather I rub the shoulder where he sunk his claws in almost a year ago. "But you've got this, I know you do. Just don't overextend and stick with one of us, you'll be alright. See you kids tomorrow."

Logan then heads for the stairs, leaving most of us in shock, me and Bobby especially. Didn't expect that from him if I'm completely honest.

Once Logan goes up the stairs Remy breaks the silence with a loud yawn. "Well, with a pep talk from the Wolverine we're sure to win now, aren't we? Remy's off ta bed now, see all of you tomorrow, yeah?"

Kurt gets up. "I should get going too, don't vant Remy to lock me out of the room again."

Remy rolls his eyes in annoyance as he and Kurt head up the stairs. "That was one time, Kurt. Besides, you got in eventually."

Jubilee then gets up as she throws her can away. "May as well follow their leads," She then smirks. "To my own room, 'cause I don't got a roommate," She boasts.

The rest of us get up, Rogue turns to Kitty and smirks, Kitty blushes in response. Wonder what that was about. Rogue and Jubilee go upstairs. Bobby then goes, patting my shoulder as he does. I then head to the stairs, but before I do Kitty stops me.

"What's up?" I ask.

Her eyes dart around before looking at me with a solid stare. Before I can ask again Kitty kisses me on the lips. It's quick, just a little peck, but it still leaves an effect on me. I-wha-how do I react? "Good night, Nolan," She says. Kitty's then upstairs.

I stand in shock, not sure what to do. I gingerly trace a finger over my lips as the feeling of her lips doesn't go away, my face begins to heat up. Y'know what? I'm gonna ask Kitty on a date after all this is over.

With a grin on my face I head upstairs, ready to face tomorrow head-on.

* * *

Well, this is it.

The team's now in the mission room, our suits on, although Wolverine, Sunfire, and Thunderbird don't have their masks on. Beast and Cyclops stand side-by-side as we study a hologram of the asteroid and Earth one more time.

Beast creates a projected trajectory for the _Blackbird_. "If we follow this path, we'll find the least resistance, from there Marvel Girl can fire her," He pauses to find the right word. "Human bullets."

Sitting right next to me is Shadowcat, who hasn't spoken to me since the kiss last night. She leans forward as she studies the map, resting her head on her hand. "How do we know that's the path of least resistance?"

"Mimic and I have studied it relentlessly, but we can't come up with a proper conclusion," He highlights a section of space between Asteroid M and Earth. "It seems as though this is a magnetic dead space; we can use this to our advantage."

Shadowcat nods as she leans back. She and I make quick eye contact, a light smile grows on my face, which she copies, making my smile grow. We then turn back to Cyclops as he begins to speak.

"The Avengers and Fantastic Four came around earlier," He begins, catching our attention. "They assured us that things on Earth will be covered by them. So, we don't need to worry, Magneto and the Brotherhood are our priority."

"Everyone remember their roles?" Beast asks.

Iceman raises his hand. "Me, Jubilee, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Sunfire will find a way to stop Asteroid M from reaching its goal."

"And Wolverine and I will find the Professor and Forge," Psylocke says.

"The rest of us will take on the Brotherhood," Angel finishes.

Cyclops nods. "Good. Beast, how big's the window for Marvel Girl, Mimic, and Colossus?"

"By my calculations she would have a little more than a minute to launch the two in the hangar bay of the Asteroid," Beast answers.

"How do we know where the hangar bay is?" Sunfire asks.

"Thanks to Tony Stark we were able to use a satellite to study the asteroid," Cyclops says. Footage of the Asteroid is then shown. Damn, it's massive. "The satellite couldn't get to close without getting affected by the magnetic fields, but we were able to find the hangar bay at the very least. It's a tight window, can you do it?"

Marvel Girl smirks as she nods. "I can. The real question is if they can?"

Everyone looks at me and Colossus. The two of us look at each other before nodding. "Da. You can count on us," Colossus answers for the both of us.

"Wait," Gambit interrupts. "Couldn't Nightcrawler just 'port us in?"

He shakes his head. "Nein. Vell, I can, but I'd rather not."

"Why?" Gambit asks.

"My teleportation vorks best vhen I can see vhere I vant to go. If I vere to teleport into the hangar vith someone's it's entirely possible ve could teleport in the same spot as a box. And ve all know vhat they say about two solid objects in the same space..." He trails off, the idea of what would happen clear in our minds.

Gambit looks at him with wide eyes before turning back to the center of the room. "Let's not do dat, yeah?"

Cyclops nods before studying the team, after a minute of silence he takes a deep breath. "Look, this isn't the ideal first mission I'd have for any of you, if you want to back out, now's your chance, no one's going to judge you."

We all stay, not one of us moving.

Cyclops nods as a proud smile begins to grow on his face. "For a lot of you this is your first mission with the X-Men, and to be honest? I'd rather fighting the Brotherhood not be your first, but that's life, you can't control everything."

"Hell, Mimic fought Mister Sinister on his first mission with us," Thunderbird points out.

"Exactly, and he's still here. If he can survive that I know you guys can survive this, but still be careful, even you, Mimic. The Brotherhood's dangerous, don't underestimate any of them for even a second. We're doing this to rescue our friends, I want us all to come back from this. Got it?" Cyclops looks around.

We all give various positive replies. Cyclops claps his hands together. "All right, let's go save Forge and Professor X, shall we?"

He and Beast turn around and exit the room, heading towards the hangar, the rest of us following. I'm in the back, I try to get to Shadowcat, but I see she's busy talking to Thunderbird and Jubilee, so I don't interrupt.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. Turning around I see a smirking Psylocke. "Why're you thinking about Shadowcat?" She asks.

I feel my face heat up again. Goddammit. "Hold up, why are you reading my mind?"

She rolls her eyes as she taps two fingers on my forehead, she continues to the _Blackbird_. "Please, Mimic, I don't have to read your mind to know you're thinking about her. Hell, I'm pretty sure Marvel Girl knows too. So, spill, why's she the only thing on your mind?"

The heat on my face intensifies, memories of the kiss come back. Psylocke lets out a coo as she rubs my hair. "That's actually cute, your first kiss," She sighs dreamily. "I remember mine like it was yesterday. You better be careful though, looks like she's becoming good friends with Storm, and if you break her heart who knows what Storm's gonna do to you," She warns.

I roll my eyes, grateful for her advice, but it isn't necessary. "I'll be fine, Kitty and I have been friends since we were kids, I'd never do anything to hurt her. Besides, it wasn't my first kiss," I mutter.

"I'm sorry, did you say that wasn't your first?"

Stupid. Fucking. Ninja training. "Kitty and I kissed when we were younger, to see all the fuss was about, you know. We got the idea after watching a romance film. Wait a minute, why the hell am I telling you all this?"

"Because I'm now going to assist you in all your romance needs. After we deal with these guys, of course," Psylocke declares, all without my input.

The conversation ends once we enter the jet. The only two seats left being the ones in the back, Psylocke and I take those two seats. Once we buckle in the launching process begins. This is it; the X-Men are off to space.

Everyone's silent as the jet takes off, all of us hyping ourselves up as we prepare for our next big battle, something the team hasn't had since last year.

Hope we aren't rusty.

Huh, just realized, today's November Eleventh.

Happy birthday to me.

* * *

**It's been a while, hasn't it? Man, things got insane since the last chapter, COVID-19 became a big deal, countries locking down, schools either ending early or temporarily shutting down. The college I go to is gonna do the rest of the semester online, not how I expected my second semester to go, but here we are. **

**But back to the story. This is an arc I've been excited to write for a while now, mainly because I really want to write characters like Magneto, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and others as compelling instead of portraying them as Saturday morning cartoon villains. Speaking of the twins, in this universe they **_**are **_**Magneto's kids. Honestly, I don't like the retcon, I feel like it spits on decades of character history as if it were nothing. So, yeah, it's staying in this story. By next chapter we'll see the rest of the Brotherhood, can't wait to show you guys the rest of the team.**

**Quick note: I've started writing a **_**Mortal Kombat **_**fic! It isn't up yet; it might not be up for a while, but I'll post it eventually, once the first arc's complete. I have a plan on how to write it, which will affect this story and **_**The Vitruvian Man**_** from this point on. After each arc the stories won't be updated, all to allow me time to write the next arc, that way I won't have to cram writing sessions in for the last few days before the story gets updated, hope you understand. **

**That's all from me! Please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next Thursday!**


	24. First Strike

**Second chapter after coming back! Isn't this just great? Not much to say, other than the fact that this quarantine has me thinking about starting a YouTube channel, so, you know, yeah. If I do, I'll be sure to tell you guys, and hey, why not subscribe? You could check it out at least, I'd appreciate it, really, I would. **

**That's all from me up here, on with the story!**

* * *

**First Strike**

As we travel through space Shadowcat turns to me, she taps the side of her head, signaling for a telepathic conversation. I swap to my Professor X powers and create a connection between the two of us.

_"First off, happy birthday, Nolan!"_ She begins.

_"Heh, thanks. So, what'd you want to talk about?" _I wonder.

Her smile drops and she looks down as she plays with her glove. She looks back up at me, worry clear in her eyes. _"Are you ready for this?"_

I mentally laugh. _"Of course, I am, I've dealt with Mister Sinister, Sentinels, and whole bunch of other shit. The Brotherhood shouldn't be as bad. but don't worry, I won't underestimate them. Besides, shouldn't I be asking you that? This is your first time fighting a group of unified mutants."_

_ "Yeah, I'll give you that one. But still, doesn't mean I won't stop worrying, got it?"_ She glares at me intensely.

I nod as a light smile plays on my face. _"Got it, Boss."_

Her strong demeanor then shifts into one of self-consciousness. I can feel the fear growing in her. She then looks at me, but I see her blush, she then looks everywhere but me. After taking a calming breath she makes eye contact. _"Hey, about last night-"_

"HOLY CRAP!" Jubilee shouts.

We all stop what we're doing to look outside the window, and holy crap indeed. In front of us we see a massive asteroid of stone and metal floating in space, a base clearly built into it. We see glass looking towards the planet, tubes running along the space rock, and metal hangar bay doors. Honestly, Asteroid M is impressive.

Cyclops takes a deep breath before looking back. "Marvel Girl, Storm, Mimic, and Colossus, get ready."

_"Well, time for me to be a missile!" _I tell her excitedly. I then become more serious. _"We'll talk about last night later, alright?" _I ask as I get up and head towards the back.

_"Yeah. Later. Good luck,"_ Shadowcat replies.

I then cut the mental connection as I shift to my Colossus powers, coating my skin in metal the same time he does. Once in the back, Marvel Girl puts her hand on my shoulder, gaining my attention. I look up to see a concerned look on her face. "You ready for this?" She asks.

I smirk and give her a thumbs up. "Of course, I am. You should be asking that question to Colossus."

He slams his fist into his palm, a clang of metal coming from the impact. "Da, I'm ready," He simply says.

Marvel Girl looks to Storm and nods. Storm's eyes become white as miniature tornados circle around her arms, creating a barrier between them and us. Our side has no air, while their side does.

The ramp eventually lowers, showing space in all its glory to us.

Holy shit, it's beautiful. I wish we had more time to appreciate the beauty of space, but no, we gotta stop a mutant terrorist group from wiping out humanity. Marvel Girl's telekinetic grip comes over me and Colossus. Let's go.

We're pulled back slightly before getting launched forward, streaking through space at high speeds. We both cross our arms over our faces as we near the hangar doors. As soon as I feel the door connect with my arms, we fly through the doors as if they were tissue paper. After a few moments, Colossus and I land in the hangar, our feet making loud booms as the doors repair themselves.

Looking up we see two people waiting for us, one's the blond guy with the black and silver suit and energy blasts, the other is a brown haired guy wearing jeans and a dark green long sleeved shirt that has horizontal lines going down it, two circles at each end of the lines.

The blond guy recovers first and fires his energy beam at Colossus, forcing him back a little bit. The green shirt runs at me, his fist raised to punch me. He doesn't look like much, but I should still be careful, he might have super strength.

Green shirt then sidesteps a lot harder than necessary, running to my right. The most interesting thing about his sidestep is that a clone came from it, this one running to my left. The two then run at me full sprint, making more clones as they rush me, all after stomping hard on the floor.

Once the first clone reaches me, I grab him by the head and slam him into a clone to my left, fusing the two together. Huh, I can use that. The clones then dogpile me, to no avail. Spinning around I create a tornado of green shirts, some of which hit blond hair, knocking him aside.

Colossus then looks at me and nods, I nod back. I dig my hands and feet into the ground as he claps his hands towards me, creating a shockwave that sends all the clones flying throughout the hangar.

Getting up and shifting to my Human Torch powers I flame on—something he made sure I got right when I got the powers—and float towards the two, Colossus towering over them. I turn to him as they moan in pain. "I'm gonna open the doors, make sure they're safe."

He just nods before picking the two up and throwing them through some doors at the end of the hangar. Thankfully these doors open, so they don't splatter their heads against it.

I float over to the buttons to open the doors, before I do, I get a mental call from Marvel Girl. _"Mimic, Colossus, how're things?"_

_ "Good. We ran into the blue energy guy and some other dude with brown hair. He can clone himself," _I reply. Looking at the panel I'm thankful to see clear labels on the buttons. _"Alright, I'm opening the doors now, be ready."_

Inputting the commands, the doors open, instead of having to hang on to something a holographic barrier protecting us from the vacuum is activated. Cool. The _Blackbird _then comes flying in, landing at an open spot just as the doors open again.

From the door comes the two from earlier, and some reinforcements. Toad, Lance, Pyro, and Sabretooth. Okay, we can handle this. Pyro looks at me and smirks, he reaches his arms out to me and I feel my body move on its own accord. Yeah, this is a bad powerset against him.

I try to put my flames out but that doesn't work, so I swap to my Thing powers and become a rock golem version of myself, much to Pyro's annoyance. Colossus and I charge towards the Brotherhood as the rest of the team exits the jet. Immediately Nightcrawler teleports his team behind the Brotherhood and the five of them run through the door. Wolverine growls and pops his claws as soon as he makes eye contact with Sabretooth, who does the same.

Cyclops turns to Wolverine after dodging a blast of fire from Pyro. "Wolverine! Remember, you and Psylocke are supposed to rescue Forge and the Professor! Go! Now!" He then gets locked in a beam struggle with the blond guy.

The rest of us provide cover as the two then dash out of the hangar. Surprisingly—or not, depending on how you see things—Sabretooth turns around and chases after the two, leaving his team behind. Hey, I ain't complaining.

Pyro growls as he avoids lightning strikes from Storm. "Dammit, Victor! Havok! Call for backup!"  
The blond guy—now known as Havok—rolls out of the beam struggle and activates the commlink in his ear. "Sabretooth left to go fight Wolverine! We need assistance in the hangar!" Cyclops then uses that moment to hit Havok with an optic blast, sending him skidding on his back. Surprisingly enough, Havok gets up as if nothing happened, which, by the look on his face, surprised him as well.

Havok then fires a blast at Cyclops' chest, pushing him back, but the same thing happens. While the two stare at each other in shock Marvel Girl lifts Havok up and throws him at Lance, who barely dodges his flying teammate.

Speaking of Lance, he's currently fighting me and Beast. Due to my powers I can't move fast enough to dodge his attacks, and I swear his earthquakes affect me more in this form, thankfully he's focusing mainly on me, allowing Beast to move around to get closer.

Sadly, Toad's tongue wraps around his leg and throws him aside. Just before what would be a nasty collision Beast recovers midair and somersaults off Colossus' head. Shit, that was scary. Just as I let out a breath the ground beneath me gives way. I swap to my Iceman powers and make an ice slide that brings me back up.

"Oooooh, so close but so far away, Lancy. How's it feel to lose to me? Again," I taunt.

I smirk as he growls. He then uses his powers to close the hole, smashing against my ice slide causing it to shatter. He then stomps on my chest and causes the ground below me to vibrate, keeping me pinned. "You've won the past battles, I won't lie. But I'm winning this war."

"Jesus, you can't help but be a cliché, can you?" I create a pillar out of my chest that knocks him off balance.

Beast then comes in and slams him into the ground. "Lance Alvers, was it? I must say, your powers are quite intriguing. May I study you?"

Lance struggles for a bit before placing his hand on the ground, creating a powerful earthquake that knocks everyone not flying off balance. "The name's Avalanche! And no, I ain't letting you study me!" He lifts his arms up and slams them on the ground, causing the hangar to shake violently and some of the lights to fall down. One actually falls on him.

Beast and I stand over a stunned Avalanche. Beast then turns to me. "It seems our ill-tempered friend isn't the sharpest tool in the shed."

I let out a chuckle as I shake my head. "Kit could've told you that," I turn to see the fight still going on, the cloning guy keeping Banshee busy.

"I will assist Banshee, you help Angel deal with Pyro," Beast orders.

Before I reply he leaps into the fray alongside Banshee, the two throwing clones around with their powers.

Turning around, I see Angel avoiding blasts of fire from Pyro. I go to help but get struck by an energy blast in the back courtesy of Havok. While I'm on the ground he stands over me and hits me with a continuous blast, but he's then stopped by Thunderbird shoulder checking him away.

I get up with Thunderbird's help. "Thanks," I breath out. Looking around I see us pushing back the Brotherhood. "This looks good so far. If we keep it up at this rate, we'll definitely beat them."

I turn to Thunderbird, instead I see Mystique. "Hello, Nolan."

I sigh deeply as I look into her solid yellow eyes. "Hey, Raven."

She places a bomb on my chest that detonates almost immediately, sending me flying towards a now recovered Havok who hits me with another blast as I fly towards him. Using my position to my advantage I slam my hands into the ground, quickly covering it in ice, trapping Mystique, Havok, and a now recovered Avalanche in place.

My victory's short lived, though. The hangar begins to shake, and all the metal begins to act up, forcing Colossus to transform back to normal.

Looking at the door we see four new fighters. Destiny and the Children of Magneto, the green haired girl being the one causing the shaking.

With assistance from Havok and Mystique Avalanche is taken to the four, followed by Pyro, Toad, and the cloning guy. What the hell's his name?

The rest of us then stand together, opposite the Brotherhood. As we stare each other down Marvel Girl creates a mental link for Cyclops to give his orders. _"Alright, so far so good, but right now we've got a problem. Conventionally speaking we outnumber them by three, but Multiple Man's powers totally change that."_

_ "How'd you know his name?" _Gambit asks.

_"It was in his thoughts," _Cyclops answers. _"Look, Gambit, I want you to take out the magnetic girl, that way Colossus can go full force. Beast, deal with Mystique and Destiny, I know you can take them on. Rogue, try to get Multiple Man's powers, you could easily turn the tide. Storm, Colossus, assist her. Marvel Girl, Banshee, and I will take on the twins."_

_ "Pyro, Toad, and Havok?" _I ask.

_"Angel will take on Toad, I want you on Havok. Thunderbird can handle Pyro. Got it?"_

_"Got it."_ We all reply.

"Gotta say, you X-Men sure are predictable," Quicksilver taunts. "But I will admit, you got here a lot faster than we thought you would. Doesn't matter, just means we'll defeat you faster and then take the Earth for ourselves."

"And what makes you think the Avengers or Fantastic Four would just roll over?" Cyclops asks.

Quicksilver shrugs. "I'm pretty sure they'll be too busy to deal with saving humans than to deal with us. Two birds, one stone."

Marvel Girl then steps forward. "What about all the innocent people you'll be condemning? Hell, what about mutant sympathizers? You're willing to kill them as well?"

Quicksilver's easygoing demeanor quickly shifts into one of pure rage. "THERE ARE NO MUTANT SYMPATHIZERS!"

Scarlet Witch places a comforting hand on his shoulder, successfully calming him down. After some deep breaths Quicksilver points at us. "Take them down."

The two sides run at each other, ready to collide. This is gonna be fun.

* * *

**Blue Team**

"Zey have maps, ja?" Nightcrawler asks as Blue Team sneaks around Asteroid M.

"I'm not so sure about that. But if they do, it'd be great," Shadowcat replies.

Loud roars and general sounds of destruction sound out from a distance away of Blue Team, causing them all to pause and stare in concern. "Is that the hangar?" Sunfire wonders aloud.

"Nah," Iceman shakes his head. "The hangar's down a little more to the left, that's to the right. That Sabretooth guy's fighting Wolverine and Psylocke."

"Hope they'll be okay," Jubilee says with concern.

Sunfire puts his hand on her shoulder, he nods when she turns to look at him. "They can handle themselves. We need to worry about the engine."

"Hey, guys! Map!" Shadowcat calls out.

The rest of the team stand by her to look at the map on the wall. Iceman places his finger on the blinking dot that shows their current position. He then drags his finger, creating a trail on the map, heading towards the engine room. "Alright, follow this path, turn left at the second turn, enter the elevator then go to the bottom floor. Let's go."

Following Iceman's lead the four run down the hallway, but they are then stopped by two people, Blob and a man who looks to be in his early twenties. He has blond hair and a cowl similar to Gambit. He wears a mainly blue suit with silver boots that go up to the knees, silver gloves with blue knuckles that go up to his elbows, and a blue top half with silver sides that come together to make an M on his chest.

He and Blob study the group. Eventually the blond man's eyes narrow as he growls in annoyance. "He isn't here. Where is he?"

Sunfire, Iceman, and Jubilee clench their fists, their attacks being built up. "Who are you talking about?" Iceman demands.

The blond man's eyes narrow as he ices up, much to the surprise of Blue Team. Further surprising them is the fact that his left fist starts to give off energy similar to Sunfire, and his left matching Jubilee's. "Mimic! He took my name! I want—no, need to kill him, to be the one and only Mimic!" The newly realized Mimic roars.

Shadowcat narrows her eyes as she glares at him. "Hate to break it to you, but he's been Mimic for a year. We haven't heard of you until now."

Jubilee bounces in place as she laughs. "Yeah, dude, first come, first serve."

Mimic growls and opens his mouth, but before he can retort Blob stomps forward. "Quit your bitchin'. These X-Geeks invaded our home, common knowledge says we make 'em regret it," Blob then frowns slightly. "Too bad Thunderbird ain't here, I've got a bone to pick with him."

Iceman smirks. "C'mon Blob, he kicked your ass fair and square, just get over it."

Blob opens his mouth to reply, which Iceman uses to his advantage by firing a blast of ice into his mouth, surprising Blob and the Brotherhood Mimic.

Jubilee and Sunfire quickly follow up with attacks of their own, pushing Blob back into Brotherhood Mimic. The three continue their push, keeping the two pinned. Nightcrawler puts a hand on Shadowcat's shoulder. "Ve should make a nickname for ze other Mimic."

"How about B-Mimic?" Shadowcat offers.

Nightcrawler nods. "Ah, yes, because he is B-tier, as Iceman and Mimic would say," He then teleports the two behind B-Mimic. The two Brotherhood members don't react to their now disadvantageous position.

Shadowcat runs through B-Mimic and stands between him and Blob, surprising him greatly. Before he can react, he feels two three-fingered hands on his shoulders, turning around he sees a smirking Nightcrawler. "Let's find a quiet place, ja?" Shadowcat then puts her hands atop Nightcrawler's just before he teleports the three farther down the hallway, away from Blob and the others.

While B-Mimic's shaking his head to regain his bearings Shadowcat grabs a potted plant nearby and swings it into his head, sending him stumbling back into Nightcrawler's arms. The German mutant then wraps his arms around B-Mimic and teleports up near the roof, he then drops B-Mimic who slams into the ground, letting out a groan of pain as he writhes on the floor.

Lifting his face from the ground Nightcrawler and Shadowcat see that the ice making up his head has cracks all along it, much to their surprise. B-Mimic roars as he slams his hand into the ground, flash freezing the floor and keeping the two in place. With his other hand he throws some fireworks at them. Shadowcat quickly reaches forward and grabs Nightcrawler's arm, letting the fireworks phase through them.

B-Mimic gets up and runs at them head down, shoulder out ready to slam into them. Staying intangible Shadowcat and Nightcrawler fully expect him to run through them. Instead, he slams into them, freeing their feet from their ice traps and sending them skidding back.

On the ground Shadowcat face palms. "He calls himself "Mimic" of course he can copy powers."

B-Mimic then teleports behind the two, standing over them. He reaches down and picks them up before throwing them into a wall to the left.

"And it seems like he can copy more zen one power at a time," Nightcrawler replies.

The two roll out of the way of some fireballs and run into one of the rooms. Once inside they notice that it seems to be a gym. Shadowcat turns around and quickly reaches into the panel next to the door, messing with some of the wires. After a few minutes she backs up, just as B-Mimic yells.

"Vhat did you do?" Nightcrawler asks.

"Locked the door, not sure how much time it'll give us though. Hey, you notice his face when he slammed into the floor?" Shadowcat asks.

"Ja, it vas cracked. Vhat vas zat about?"

Before Shadowcat can answer a massive shockwave erupts, causing the two to stumble in place.

"Well, unlike Nolan, he can copy more powers at once. But it seems like being far away from his source weakens him. His fireworks were a lot weaker than what Jubilee would throw," Shadowcat answers, looking around expecting another mini earthquake. She then nods to the door, here the two can see two circles of heat on it, both slowly growing. "And he's trying to melt through the door. At this point Sunfire would have been in the room the moment I shut the door."

Nightcrawler nods, seeing the validity in her theories. His eyes widen before they narrow, a smirk growing on his face. "I have a plan."

Shadowcat turns to him, an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "What do you have in mind?"

"He vants us dead, meaning he now has a one-track mind. Let's lead him away, eventually he'll lose the powers from the others," Nightcrawler tells her.

"But he'll still have ours," Shadowcat points out.

"Ja, but vho else could deal vith our powers than us?" Nightcrawler counters.

Looking at the door the two see that it's beginning to melt from the top down. Shadowcat then turns to him, a smirk now on her face. "Let's do it."

Taking his hand, the two run through the wall away from the door. Once outside they look over to see B-Mimic glaring at them, he then forgets about the door and chases after the two, causing them to smile.

_'Hook, line, and sinker,'_ Shadowcat thinks victoriously.

The two run down the hallway, B-Mimic following close behind.

* * *

Blob eventually grunts in frustration before lifting his leg up as high as possible. He then stomps down, causing Iceman and Jubilee to stumble. Holding up an arm to block Sunfire's attack, Blob reaches for a potted plant with his other hand, and once he feels one, he wraps his meaty hand around it before swinging it into Sunfire, sending him into the wall to the right.

Attempting to turn to his left Blob jerks in place, looking down he sees that his feet are encased in ice, courtesy of Iceman. Looking up he sees Jubilee with both hands cupped together in front of her chest, she then smirks and throws her arms forward, hitting Blob with a massive firework that creates an explosion.

Once the dust clears, she's surprised to see Blob still standing in place, a smug smirk on his face as he breathes a little heavier. "I thought you X-Men knew about my powers. I can resist pretty much whatever you throw at me. Come on, try again," He taunts.

Iceman hits Blob's front with a continuous blast of ice as Sunfire attacks with a stream of fire to Blob's back. While this is happening Iceman then stomps his foot down, causing the ice under Blob's feet to jump up, forcing the massive terrorist into the air.

While in the air, Jubilee hits him with a barrage of fireworks that causes some stings against his skin. Just as he hits the floor Iceman and Jubilee jump, avoiding the shockwave from it.

Jubilee breaks out in a fit of hysterical laughter as one she points at Blob's prone form, her other hand keeping her steady on a nearby wall as she folds over laughing. "Oh, oh my god," She breaks out in another fit of laughter. "H-how much do you w-w-weigh?" She breaks out in another fit.

Blob growls as his vision becomes red, memories of growing up and his time at the circus coming back full force. Blob roars as he grabs another nearby potted plant and throws it at Jubilee. The vase connects with her head and sends her flying back, she then flies to the ground she skids back a distance, groaning as her head begins to bleed.

"Jubilee!" Iceman and Sunfire shout.

Blob breaths heavily as he gets back up, glaring strongly at her prone form. "Shut up," He mutters. Blob then repeats the same two words for a period of time, causing great confusion for the two, especially Iceman. "SHUT UP!" Blob then roars.

He runs full force at Jubilee, fully intending to kill her. Iceman gets in the way and erects an ice wall that knocks Blob off his path, Sunfire then swoops in and picks up Jubilee's prone form, flying down the hallway to take her a safe distance away.

Blinded by his rage, Blob just keeps punching the ice wall, small cracks growing with each hit, slowly forcing Iceman back. _'The hell? When Forge and I made fun of him last time he didn't react even half as bad as he is now. What's different about Jubilee?'_ Iceman wonders as he grits his teeth in determination.

Eventually, Blob headbutts the ice wall, sticking his head through it. Before he can push any further Sunfire hits him with a flame enhanced kick to the head, sending him back a couple of feet.

Sunfire lands beside Iceman, the flames of his body causing Iceman to become disoriented slightly. "Drop the wall on him, it should keep him pinned for some time," Sunfire orders.

Iceman nods as he complies. Blob continues to roar and thrash as he attempts to take the wall off of him, slowly breaking through again. "Can you back up a little? Your making me a little light-headed," Iceman asks. As Sunfire backs up he raises his arms and adds to the ice wall, making it more difficult for Blob to get out. "Thanks."

Sunfire keeps his fists aflame as he glares at Blob's struggling form. "In the short time I've known you I can safely assume you have made fun of Blob's weight before. What makes this time so different?" He wonders.

Iceman sighs as he slightly turns his head to look at Sunfire. "That's what I'm wondering. Every past fight we've had with the Brotherhood we always made fun of his weight. Huh, maybe now he's finally snapped."

"Yeah. Maybe he has."

Sunfire and Iceman look at each other, curious as to who the mysterious voice is. Turning around the two feel their hearts skip a beat.

A mountain of a man stands behind them. While Blob was big due to his weight, this guy's big due to his muscle. He wears mainly brown armor with a crimson red torso. He has two armbands on his right arm and one on his left, two metallic wristbands and brass knuckles of the same color. What really grabs their attention is the dome helmet over his head, leaving his eyes, nose, and viciously smirking mouth open.

This is the Juggernaut.

Juggernaut smirks as he cracks his knuckles, the sound echoing around the hallway. The sound of ice shattering catches the attention of the X-Men. Turning their heads slightly they see that Blob has broken free of the ice wall, he breathes deeply as he glares at the two.

Sunfire then stands back-to-back with Iceman, ready to face Blob.

During all of this Iceman has only one thing to say. "Well, we're fucked."

* * *

**Gold Team**

"Dammit! Does he have a hate-boner for you or something!?" Psylocke shouts.

After running past the Brotherhood, fully expecting them to stay behind to deal with the rest of the team Psylocke looks back just to make sure, but to her surprise Sabretooth's currently chasing after them.

Wolverine growls as the two turn the corner. He then stops and turns around, crouching low, ready for Sabretooth. As expected, Sabretooth comes running around the corner, Wolverine then leaps forward and tackles him away. "Go! Find Forge and the Professor! I'll keep him busy!"

"Oh no you don't!" Sabretooth roars. Placing his feet on Wolverine's chest Sabretooth kicks out, sending Wolverine flying towards Psylocke who barely dodges her airborne teammate. Sabretooth chuckles as he wipes his bloody mouth with his right forearm, his left arm extended to show his sharp claws. "I've spent countless years fightin' the runt, why not spice things up, ya know?"

Sabretooth then lunges forward, arm extended for Psylocke. She weaves under his attack and creates a psionic katana that slashes through his arm, cutting through the muscle and causing immense pain in Sabretooth's head. Disoriented, Sabretooth slams face first into a wall, Wolverine then stabs his claws into Sabretooth's feet, keeping him pinned.

Sabretooth uses his intact arm and lifts Wolverine by the head, lifting him up to be level with him. He then rears his head back and slams it into Wolverine's, causing an explosion of pain to erupt from both of their heads. Once his other arm has reattached itself, he punches Wolverine in the chest, sending him flying back a fair distance.

Sabretooth then ducks a swing from Psylocke, while down he grabs her extended arm, slams her into the wall then throws her at Wolverine, causing the two to tumble. Helping her up Wolverine glares at Sabretooth, still reeling from the headbutt. "What the hell was that?"

Sabretooth grins as he tilts his head to the right. "What the hell was what, little man?"

Wolverine growls. "That headbutt. First time you did that you caved your own skull in, why'd I feel it this time?"

"Is now really the best time to play Twenty Questions?" Psylocke asks in disbelief.

"Hmm, smart and beautiful, I like," Sabretooth flirts as he shamelessly looks Psylocke up and down.

She does the same, although with a not so subtle hint of disdain. "Can't say the same."

"Creed," Wolverine growls. "What the hell made you stronger?"

Sabretooth turns his attention to his rival. Instead of replying he just takes off his right glove, showing off his claws to the two. Eventually the claws extend, and they become silver after the natural part of his nails ends.

"Magneto gave me a little upgrade," He explains. "Adamantium."

Sabretooth then drags his claws along the wall, a sharp noise causing Psylocke and Wolverine to cringe, Wolverine especially. Sabretooth then puts the claws of his left hand in front of his face, studying them. "Sadly, he didn't have too much. Just enough for my claws and my head, but hey, who am I to complain," He then crouches low, ready to pounce. "Besides, it's more than enough to kill the two of you!"

Sabretooth and Wolverine then leap towards each other, colliding midair. Landing on the ground in a heap Wolverine struggles but eventually gets Sabretooth stuck in a headlock. "C'mon! Hit him!"

Psylocke hurries forward and stabs a psionic knife into Sabretooth's head, causing the feral mutant to growl in pain and thrash around even more, throwing Wolverine off him. Sabretooth's arm then lashes out, slashing Psylocke's leg, ignoring her reinforced suit entirely.

Sabretooth leans over Psylocke and draws his arm back, ready to stab downward. Thrusting down Sabretooth smirks. _'One down, one to go. Sorry, darlin'.'_ But just before his claws can stab through Psylocke's head Wolverine's claws stab through his arm, stopping them. Using this to her advantage Psylocke kicks Sabretooth in the crotch with her good leg, causing him to grab at the area by reflex.

Wolverine then takes advantage of the opening by grabbing Sabretooth's neck and begins to choke him. As Sabretooth drops to his knees and attempts to slap Wolverine's arms away the X-Man looks to his teammate. "Go! I'll keep him busy!"

Psylocke quickly looks at Sabretooth before looking back at her teammate. "You'd better not die," She then creates a psionic shuriken and throws it at Sabretooth's head, causing him to lose his grip on Wolverine's arms. She then turns around and runs down the hallway as fast as she can with her new injury, using her telepathy to search for Professor X and Forge.

Wolverine then places his full attention on Sabretooth, his grimace growing as he glares at his currently choking rival.

Unbeknownst to Wolverine, Sabretooth uses his right hand to slowly reach for a knife hidden in his left boot. Upon grabbing it he lashes out and stabs it into one of Wolverine's arm, causing him to let go of the feral mutant's throat.

Sabretooth then pushes his advantage by sinking his claws into Wolverine's other hand and reeling him in for yet another headbutt, sending the two away from each other.

Wolverine recovers first and tackles Sabretooth. After hitting the ground Sabretooth lifts his arms up to protect him self from a barrage of slashes from Wolverine. Sabretooth then jerks his knee into Wolverine's back, sending him tumbling over. Sabretooth then plants his hands down and leaps backwards, slamming onto Wolverine's back, pinning him down.

The feral mutant breathes heavily as he stomps two more times on Wolverine's spine. "What the hell happened to you? You're soft. Last time we fought you'd have cut my face off twice by now," Sabretooth then pauses before laughing heartily. "Don't tell me those X-Babies have been getting to ya!"

Wolverine jerks his elbow behind his back, hitting Sabretooth on the leg, causing him to stumble. Keeping his arm out, Wolverine then grabs Sabretooth by the leg and swings him into one of the rooms. Keeping the pressure, Wolverine charges after his rival into a room made to look like a jungle.

Sabretooth chuckles as Wolverine pins him into the wall at the far end of the miniature jungle, passing only because Wolverine punches him in the face. "Would ya look at that, we're in my training room. How fortuitous," Sabretooth then grabs Wolverine's shoulders and throws him into a tree, and while he's disoriented Sabretooth runs forward and stomps Wolverine's chest, kicking him through the tree.

Wolverine groggily gets up but is immediately hit by the part of the tree Sabretooth manages to hold. Recovering while in the air Wolverine stabs his claws into the ground, digging through it slightly. He then drags his claws up, kicking dirt and grass into Sabretooth's eyes. Wolverine then uses his right claws to stab into his rival's side, his left claws pierce through Sabretooth's chest, bursting his heart.

Sabretooth's eyes become red and his pupils dilate as he begins to foam around the mouth, his healing going into overdrive. He breathes heavily as his arm slowly jerks towards Wolverine's arms, digs his claws into his arms and lifts Wolverine up. Roaring in rage and pain Sabretooth then slams Wolverine down, causing pain to erupt from Wolverine's entire bottom half.

Sabretooth then claws at Wolverine's face repeatedly, tearing through his cowl and slashing out his eyes. He then grabs Wolverine by the head and digs his claws into Wolverine's eyes, causing the X-Man to roar in pain.

Wolverine then grabs Sabretooth by the wrists and pushes his arms away. He then begins to breathe heavily, also foaming at the mouth, once his eyes regenerate, they bleed red and his pupils dilate.

The two circle each other, waiting for the other to make the first move or mistake. After some fake outs they crouch away from each other, entirely silent, the only noise coming from the distant waterfall in the enclosure.

Letting out roars the two leap towards each other, meeting in a clash of metal, blood, and flesh.

* * *

**Main Team**

I slam into the side of the _Blackbird_. God fucking damn, Havok's attacks really do feel like Cyclops', the hell's that about?

I swap to my Silver Samurai powers and charge up my arms. I hold them in front of me in an X formation, blocking some of Havok's attack. With a grunt I swing my arms out, breaking the energy beam and hitting Havok with an energy attack, blunted to avoid killing him.

I then swap to my Mister Fantastic powers and stretch my arm out, wrapping it around him. I lift Havok up and swing him into some boxes, they fall over to show computer parts in them. Stretching my neck, I hit him with a headbutt before slamming him into the side of one of the Brotherhood jets.

My arm becomes unbearably hot, so I let go to see Havok's silver circle on his chest is glowing blue. "You really can copy people's powers, can you?" He asks.

I narrow my eyes as I enlarge my fists. "What's it to ya?"

"I guess it still works even if the person you get it from isn't anywhere nearby then," He continues.

Where the hell is he going with this? I raise my fists as I lower my head behind them. "Yeees?"

He smirks as the glowing on his chest intensifies. "I keep telling him he "If you aren't as strong as him, there's no reason for you to have the name." But does he listen? No, of course not."

"Who're you talking about?" I ask.

"No one," Havok then fires a blast of energy at me.

Thanks to my elasticity my body just stretches back to absorb the damage, happy my suit is made out of unstable molecules, something Mister Fantastic found out when they visited. I sigh as I stretch around his attacks. These powers will keep me safe, but they won't help me take him down, I need to switch.

I swap to my Siryn powers, which, fun fact, are actually different from my Banshee powers. Siryn's screams are higher pitched, great for destroying glass or disorienting enemy's, on the other hand, Banshee's screams are great for creating a wall of force, such as keeping people afloat, or sending people and massive objects back.

Rolling away from an attack I stay on one knee as I hit Havok with a sonic scream, causing him to reel back and cover his ears, some blood seeping down his cowl. I then stop and look down, releasing a quick scream that sends me flying headfirst into his chest, tackling him into another box and knocking the two of us over it.

Keeping him pinned down I raise a fist and punch him in the face twice. Before I can go for a third punch a metallic band wraps around my wrist, keeping it in place.

Looking up I see Polaris floating towards us, glaring angrily as she keeps an arm extended towards me, her other arm keeping a metal panel over Gambit and Beast. Her eyes glow green as the band around my wrist tightens. "Stay. Away. From him," She growls.

While looking at her Havok hits me with an energy blast that sends me arcing through the air. I then slam onto one of the _Blackbird's _wings, gasping as the air is driven out of me.

Rogue then comes over and helps me up. "You okay?"

I nod as I let go of her, another Rogue helps keep me steady. Looking to either side of me I see two Rogues. Looking at the main battle I see three other Rogues helping a now recovered Gambit and Beast fight Polaris. Look's like she took out Multiple Man. Nice.

"He's strong. Hell, his powers remind me of Cyclops' honestly," I reply.

My eyes widen as I see Havok jump on the box, firing a burst of energy at the three of us (two of us?) I stand in front of the Rogue on my left and swap to the powers I gained from Dr. Cecilia Reyes, creating a shield that protects us.

Keeping the shields up I start to take steps towards Havok, slowly pushing him back, giving him less space to maneuver. The Rogues put their hands on my shoulders. The one on the left leans in towards my ear. "Keep 'im busy, Ah'll flank 'im."

She then runs behind the two of us, using the terrain as cover as the Rogue to my right stays with me. After a moment the attack stops, lowering my shield we see Havok blasting a small army of Rogues away from him. Each hit creating a new clone.

During the chaos the one to my right runs forward and tries to grab at his face, but before she can one of her clones kicks her hand away. The clone then shifts into Mystique, who looks at Rogue with a slightly sad but still disappointed face. "Oh, you poor girl you. The X-Men have done nothing but held you back. The Rogue I know would have taken Madrox out for good."

Rogue's eyes widen before they narrow. She clenches her fist as she glares at Mystique. "They ain't holdin' me back, they're pushin' me forward, unlike you or Irene!"

The barrel of a gun is placed on the back of my head. Lovely.

"Well, that hurts to hear, especially from you, child," A soft, refined voice says from behind me.

Rogue looks at me and whoever's holding me at gunpoint, but as soon as she does Mystique holds her at gunpoint. "Irene and I will give you one more chance to come back to us, if you don't take it, you're friend's dead."

"What makes you think you can kill him so easily?" Rogue asks.

"Well for one, if he had powers to handle the gun wouldn't he have dealt with it by now?" Mystique counters. "Now, what do you say?"

"Woah, hold up," Havok interrupts, grabbing Mystique's arm. "I thought we were just gonna take 'em out and imprison them, not kill them."

Even though her eyes are entirely yellow I can tell she rolls her eyes in annoyance and jerks her arm away. "Alex, please, they're the enemy, if they aren't dead, they'll completely derail our plans," She turns to glare at me. "Although, the rest can die, keep Rogue and Nightcrawler alive."

Wait, his name's Alex? I mean, it's a stretch, but isn't Scott's brother named Alex? And the fact that they have similar powers really helps my theory. Then again, Alex is an extremely common name. Stop, hold up. Banshee showed a resistance to Siryn and Black Tom, he said it had something to do with genetic mutations between family. Holy shit. Did we just—

Destiny slams her gun into my temple, nearly knocking me out. Rogue quickly uppercuts Mystique and avoids an attack from Havok. Shaking my head, I swap to my Wolverine powers and pop my claws out, and while I'm still down I swipe at Destiny's leg, causing her to fall over and clutch at her bleeding leg.

Thought she was a precog, she should've seen that coming. Whatever, I'm not complaining.

"Irene!" Mystique shouts.

She runs forward and hits me with a dropkick, sending me rolling away. Lifting my head Mystique shoots a bullet into my right eye, causing an unbearable pain to erupt as I cup my hands over the injury and shout in pain.

Mystique stands over me, ready to shoot out my other eye, but before she can some boxes slam into her. Looking to the left I see a glaring Marvel Girl with her arm extended floating towards us, boxes floating around her. "That was a big mistake," She threatens.

She then drops all of the boxes on Mystique's prone form, keeping her trapped. Satisfied she turns to me, her glare shifting into a look of concern. "Jesus, Nolan! Are you okay?"

I lift a hand as she helps me up. "Wolverine powers," I explain. Feeling my right eye grow back I blink rapidly as I look around, getting used to it. "See, perfectly fine."

A scarlet bolt of energy explodes against the boxes, sending them flying all over the place, freeing Mystique. Well, those powers look useful.

Mystique gets up and glares at Marvel Girl, wiping the blood off her lips. She quickly looks at Scarlet Witch and nods a thanks. A ruby red blast courtesy of Cyclops slams into Scarlet Witch's back, sending her to the floor.

Quicksilver then rushes forward and hits Cyclops with a barrage of punches before helping his sister up. Marvel Girl then stomps on the ground, creating a telekinetic shockwave that forces the three back.

Cyclops runs to stand next to us, looking at the blood around my right eye. "You okay, Mimic?"

I shrug. "Got shot in the eye, no big deal," I then swap to my Quicksilver powers. "I've got Quicksilver."

"Scarlet Witch is a _little_ out of my league," Cyclops admits.

"Then you deal with Mystique, Scarlet Witch is mine," Marvel Girl says. Her eyes glow as she lifts some debris, throwing them at Scarlet Witch, causing her to take flight and dodge around. Marvel Girl follows her into the air and the two fly around, launching energy bolts and debris at each other. God, that's so cool.

Quicksilver and I glare at each other as Mystique and Cyclops begin to fight. He then does some stretches. "If I'm being completely honest, I hope you can stand a challenge, speedsters are hard to come by, and the fights between two are always great."

I lift my left leg and balance on my right, bouncing in place a little. I then repeat with my right leg. "Trust me, I'm more than ready."

The two of us walk towards each other, keeping eye contact. Upon reaching each other we both face forward and get into a runner's position. "Ready," He begins.

"Set," I continue.

"GO!" We both shout.

Two blurs, one blue and silver the other black and orange run through the hangar, occasionally colliding.

As we run, I turn to look at Quicksilver, after avoiding a right hook to my face. "So, why're you doing this?"

He raises an eyebrow. "What the hell do you mean?"

"I mean, c'mon, you can't be an evil villain just 'cause, life isn't a Saturday morning cartoon," I kick Quicksilver in the gut, sending him tumbling into some boxes. Pressing the attack, I pin him down with my left arm and hit him with my other fist. He weaves his head under another punch and kicks me back, the two of us continue running again.

"You really expect me to tell you my entire life story after meeting each other like four times?" Quicksilver asks. He moves to my right and punches me on the side of my face, slamming me into the wall to my side.

Recovering, I punch him in the gut before the two of us begin running again, looking a little worn out. "Why not? Like you said, we've met each other like four times, shouldn't we get to know each other? As enemies?"

He glares at me as he attempts to trip me. I jump over his leg and slow down a little and stay behind him, once in position I Sparta kick him in the back. "I mean, you seemed pretty angry about the "human sympathizers" thing."

Quicksilver's face becomes blank before shifting into one of anger. The two of us narrowly avoid a strike of lightning from Storm before stumbling to regain our footing thanks to an earthquake from Avalanche. "You really want to know why?"

He runs past the door and into the hallway. Well, I really do wanna know. I follow him into the hallway, but he's nowhere to be found. From a corridor to the right he sticks his foot out, tripping me down into a bench.

He kneels over me and punches me twice. "When Wanda and I were children we lived in a small village with our Mother and Father. One night, when playing with the other children Wanda's powers activated, scaring the other kids. They promised not to say anything. That was a lie."

I punch his chest with both fists before slamming him into one of the walls, punching his face a couple of times before we head down the hallway to our left. "What happened next?" I ask, genuinely invested in this story.

"My "best friend" betrayed us," He growls out. "The people of our village were a superstitious lot, they believed Wanda to be a witch," He pauses to take a deep breath. "One day, Father and I were away, fishing for dinner, when we returned home, we found Wanda on a pyre, the villagers ready to burn a child!"

He shoulder checks me into a door, it then opens and I fall into the room. Looking around I see it's a giant room in a circular shape. Walking past me, Quicksilver walks to the doors leading into a room. "This is where I go to test my speed," He breathes out.

Like earlier, I stand by him as we get in a runner's position. The ground beneath us glows red, then yellow, then green, the doors open. The two of us run into the room, slowly running along the walls. "What about your mother?"

He growls as he swings towards me, which I lean backwards to avoid. "She was already dead. Wanda, an eight-year-old child had to watch her Mother burn, smell her flesh cook, hear her screams as she was burned by the people she trusted!"

"Jesus," I breathe in shock.

Quicksilver scoffs. "He was not there that day. Or ever," He looks down, a forlorn look in his eyes. "My powers activated at that moment, I then saved Wanda, the villagers wanted to kill me next, but Father made sure that didn't happen. They had knives and pitchforks and whatnot, all metal. You can tell what happens next."

I slam my shoulder into Quicksilver's side harder than I meant to, sending us both to the ground. We both groan as we hold ourselves up with our arms. I look up and study him, looking at him in a new light. "Look, dude," I push off the ground and stay on sit on my legs. "I get it. Honestly, I do. If something like that happened to my Mom," I shudder at the thought. "Holy shit, that would be a massacre."

Quicksilver stands up and breathes deeply, but shortly after he stumbles and stays on one knee. "Then why are you against me?"

"Because I've seen the good in humans. Yeah, there are some bad people out there, but there are some good one's too," My mind goes to my friends, Peter, Harry, and Gwen particularly. "You can still change. I'm gonna go into cliché territory now, I may not know anything about her, but would your mother want her husband and children to wipe out the human race?"

Quicksilver's curious face breaks, I can tell he's starting to rethink things.

Wait, I'm asking the wrong question. "Was your mother human?"

Quicksilver avoids my eyes as he really begins to rethink his position. But seriously though, did no one else on the team think to ask these questions?

"Yes, she was a human. The _only _beacon of hope and beauty amongst savages."

Both of us look at the door and see who spoke.

Holy shit.

Standing at the door, arms folded as he floats towards us is the Master of Magnetism. Magneto.

* * *

**Magneto magnetizes the competition! One of my favorite villains of all time has finally arrived, and man, I am excited to write him. Although, Magneto hasn't been a villain for a while, has he? Okay, so, we've seen the backstories to some of the Brotherhood, throughout this arc we'll see the motivation for the others, although some are on the team just 'cause they wanna wreck shit, you'll know who. By the way, Quicksilver and Mimic's fight is based off the battle between Flash and the Reverse Flash in **_**Injustice 2**_**, an amazing battle between speedsters if I've ever seen one.**

**Let me say this one more time down here. I have a DC comics story called **_**The Vitruvian Man**_** up and running! It's been going on for a while now, next Saturday will be the end of the second arc. Go ahead and check it out in the Justice League section.**

**That's all from me! Please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next Thursday!**


	25. Unstoppable Force, Immovable Object

**Here we are with the next chapter of this arc. So, the team's gonna be spread throughout the Asteroid, and the chapters will focus mainly on specific fights while also going to focus on other characters on the side. There will be five more chapters after this one before the arc's end. **

**Quick note: I'm planning on making some spin-off stories sometime in the future. The first one'll be based off Mister Sinister and start from his meeting with Nolan's grandmother and end when he finds Nolan way back in the beginning of the story. But that won't happen until later, 'cause if I made it now there'd be some spoilers for this story, and we don't want that, do we? **

**The other spin-off will have Iceman, Mimic, Human Torch, Spider-Man, Quicksilver, Nova, and Winter Soldier as a team. You can see where that's gonna go. It'll be a story about the wider Marvel Universe, so arcs about the Civil War and Secret Invasion, stuff like that. Although, those stories won't come for a while, I'm already having some trouble juggling two stories and writing a third right now. Stay tuned for news in the future. **

**That's all from me up here, let's get on with the story!**

* * *

**Unstoppable Force, Immovable Object**

Iceman lets out a scream as he's thrown through the air, he then slams into a wall and slides down, groaning in pain. "We need back up," He mumbles from his place on the ground.

"Less talking more fighting!" Sunfire growls. He stays midair, doing his best to avoid Blob's swinging fists.

Juggernaut chuckles as he stomps towards Iceman, each footstep shaking the ground. He cracks his knuckles as he looks down on Iceman. "At least one o' you knows what he's talkin' about."

Iceman drags his hands on the floor and swings them up as he roars, trapping Juggernaut in a small glacier. He then jumps on an ice slide and slides around Juggernaut, one hand adding to the ice, trapping Juggernaut further.

Seeing an opportunity, Blob grabs one of Sunfire's legs and swings him into Iceman, knocking him off his ice slide. Getting up, Iceman's eyes widen in surprise once he sees his ice cracking. "W-what the hell? N-n-no one's ever cracked my ice that easily."

Further shocking the young X-Man, Juggernaut flexes his arms, shattering the ice and sending shards all over the place, some bouncing off of Blob's body. Juggernaut looks at Iceman with a predatory smirk as he rubs his hands together and breathes on them, taunting Iceman. "Oooh, chilly. C'mon Blob, let's take 'em to Charlie, I wanna see his face once he sees two of his kids are dead."

Sunfire and Iceman step back, their attacks ready. Iceman creates blades over his fists as he glares at Juggernaut. "You seem pretty friendly with the Professor. Mind telling?"

Juggernaut's eyes narrow as he thinks it over, eventually he shrugs his massive shoulders. "Eh, why not?" He puts his right hand over his left shoulder as he rotates his right arm. "Little Charlie and I are step-brothers, simple as that."

Iceman's eyes widen before narrowing. "He never talked about a step-brother. Why should I believe you?"

"When we beat you up, we'll take ya to Charlie, he'll tell ya everything," He lets out a breath through his nose. "Enough talk!"

Immediately, Juggernaut runs forward, head lowered, and his right arm lifted up to protect his face. Iceman quickly creates an ice wall, but Juggernaut just runs through it as if it were a glass pane, slamming into Iceman.

Sunfire barely avoids Juggernaut as he takes to the air, dodging a thrown bench from Blob. "Iceman! Can you handle him?"

Said mutant barely rolls out of the way from Juggernaut, his body showing intense damage, he then ices up the floor, making it slippery for Juggernaut. "I'll be fine, just take on Blob! Remember, physical attacks aren't the best!"

Sunfire nods before dive bombing Blob, hitting him with a stream of flames to the face as he swoops over the fat mutant. Sunfire then tucks and flips in the air before dive bombing again, hitting Blob's legs and sweeping his feet out from under him.

After falling on the ground Iceman quickly creates ice shackles around Blob's wrists and ankles, keeping Blob trapped for Sunfire.

Sunfire then sticks one of his legs out as he flips midair and drops, leg extended and covered in flame. He then drops and connects with Blob's face, creating a small shockwave of flame that burns Blob's face. Sunfire then stays and digs his foot in, but then Iceman is thrown into him, sending the two down the hallway.

Getting up, the two see Juggernaut shattering the ice keeping Blob pinned. Sunfire looks at Iceman from the corner of his eyes. "I'm the better fighter, you've fought Blob before, we need to trade."

Iceman thinks over Sunfire's plan before nodding. "Yeah," He breathes out. "You're right. When they get close, cross our attacks, it'll create a steam cloud and hold them back just a little."

Sunfire nods as he and Iceman slowly get up with each other's help.

Juggernaut then smirks as he gets in his running position again, Blob running forward at a much slower speed. Once Juggernaut gets in range the two cross arms and fire their attacks, Iceman hitting Blob and Sunfire hitting Juggernaut. A thick cloud of steam is quickly built up, that the two use to avoid Juggernaut as he runs through the cloud and runs to the other end of the hallway, anything in his way being destroyed. Sunfire and Iceman share a nod before the Japanese mutant flies after the runaway train man.

Running through the steam cloud, Iceman creates a hammer and swings it into Blob's face, sending him back due to Blob not expecting the attack. Blob recovers and glares at Iceman, but through the cloud a ball of fire comes flying forward and explodes in his face, blinding him. Iceman then freezes the left half of Blob's body before jumping up and freezing the right half of Blob's face.

Iceman then flips back and laughs as Blob struggles to break the ice, but his laughter then stops as he remembers Jubilee. Iceman's demeanor then quickly shifts as he glares at Blob. "Why the hell did you hurt her?"

"Who?" Blob struggles to say, what with half his face being frozen.

"Jubilee!" Iceman shouts. He freezes most of the right side of Blob's body, leaving only his chest, arm, and left side of his face unfrozen. "When we first saw you Angel and I made fun of you from the get-go and you just rolled with it, yet Jubilee does the same thing and you go ballistic! It can't be just 'cause she's a girl, Marvel Girl's done the same thing and never got as bad a reaction."

Blob grits his teeth as memories he's tried so hard to forget come back to him. The circus staying in a town for a while. A girl talking to him like an actual person. Getting to know her. Falling in love with her. She and her friends come to watch the show. They all laugh at him, even her. Especially her.

With one more deafening roar Blob finally shatters the ice, he sees everything in red and the only target on his mind is the girl. Turning around Blob marches towards Jubilee's unconscious form.

Eyes widening, Iceman creates an ice slide and slides forward to intercept Blob, freezing his legs in place and creating another ice wall. Blob then pushes forward, not caring that the wall's in his way. Cracks slowly appear along it, although not at the speed they would if Juggernaut were at the other end.

Iceman then pushes the wall back and creates ice spikes that actually stab through Blob's skin, but that still doesn't deter the massive mutant. _'Dammit, he's on the warpath. What do I do? What do I do?' _Iceman thinks.

Blob then remembers he has arms, so he strikes the ice wall, making the cracks appear at a faster rate. Iceman hops off the slide and makes it shatter, creating debris to slow down Blob. _"Jean! I need help!"_

_ "What do you need, Bobby?"_ Marvel Girl immediately replies.

_"On our way to the engine room we ran into two of the Brotherhood's people, Blob and some guy calling himself Mimic, we just call him B-Mimic,"_ Iceman answers. _"Shadowcat and Nightcrawler are keeping him busy. The three of us then fought Blob, but during the fight Jubilee made fun of his weight and he went ballistic, he threw a potted plant at her head, knocking her out."_

Iceman can feel Marvel Girl's confusion and concern. _"Why'd he react so badly to her? We've done it in the past no problem."_

_ "That's what we're wondering. Think you can find out? Or send back up at least, 'cause Blob isn't the only problem,"_ Iceman continues.

_"What do you mean?"_ Marvel Girl asks.

_"Juggernaut's here, and me and Sunfire aren't having a good time dealing with two of their heaviest hitters,"_ Iceman answers.

_"Shit. Hold up, let me bring Banshee and Sunfire into the conversation,"_ For a moment things are quiet, then Iceman can feel the presence of the other two. _"Alright, go, Banshee."_

Banshee mentally sighs. _"I'll be honest wit ye, laddies, I never actually beat Juggernaut."_

_ "Lovely,"_ Sunfire dryly replies.

_"But I can say this: ye can't beat him with physical strength, he's one of the strongest people I've seen. But he's as weak to mental attacks as anyone else, sadly, his helmet protects him,"_ Banshee tells them.

_"(_Shit_)," _Sunfire swears in Japanese. _"Wait, I see latches connecting his helmet to his armor, should I detach them?"_

_ "That's the way!" _Banshee compliments. _"Get the helmet off, Marvel Girl can take 'im out."_

_ "Or you could call Mimic to him,"_ Iceman says.

_"Can't, he and Quicksilver disappeared, who knows where they are,"_ Marvel Girl replies. _"Gotta go, if I wanna survive I've gotta focus on this fight entirely. Good luck guys."_

_ "Thanks," _Iceman and Sunfire reply.

A part of the ice wall shatters, Blob's bloody fist sticking through it. Eventually another part of the wall breaks, showing Blob's other bloody fist.

Iceman steps back as he takes a deep calming breath. "Alright, Bobby, stay calm. Right now, you've gotta defend your friend and take down a raging mounta-" His thoughts shit to Juggernaut. "Hill in the shape of a man, nothing you haven't dealt with before," He spares a look back towards the room Jubilee is in. "C'mon, Jubilee, wake up."

With one more roar Blob headbutts the wall and shatters it. He then marches forward but is then slowed down by the chunks of ice from the wall and the destroyed slide. Taking advantage of the moment, Iceman begins to heal the cracks along his body.

Iceman then flicks his wrists, two ice grenades in his hands. He then throws the right one at Blob, creating a thin ice shell around the Brotherhood mutant, momentarily stopping him in his place.

Blob then breaks through the shell and resumes to march forward, breathing heavily as he now sees Iceman as a target. Iceman then throws the other ice grenade, which Blob smacks aside. It still detonates, trapping half of Blob's body in place with some spiderweb looking ice connected to the wall.

Blob grunts as he forces half his body through the shell, he then uses his momentum to slam his fist into the ground, causing Iceman to lose his footing. Blob then runs forward and body slams Iceman into a water fountain, breaking it. Blob then continues his barrage by grabbing Blob's prone form and picking him up, he then slams him into the broken water fountain repeatedly.

Regaining his senses, Iceman reaches back and freezes the water spouting from the wall, he then swings his arm forward and throws it into Blob's eyes, freezing them over. Iceman then brings his feet in before striking out, hitting Blob's face with all his strength and forcing him back.

Iceman falls to one knee and shakes his head. _'Huh, looks like he isn't using his absorption ability. I can use this to my advantage. Wonder how Sunfire's doing.'_

* * *

Sunfire's not doing so hot.

_'Shit, how the hell am I going supposed to take him down?'_ He wonders angrily.

"C'mon, get down here and fight like a man!" Juggernaut shouts. Trying to get Sunfire down, Juggernaut throws panels and plants, and whatever he can at Sunfire, hoping to hit him. None connect thanks to Sunfire's training.

"Could I convince you to come up here and fight like a sun?" Sunfire counters. He then lifts his arms up and builds a massive attack. He then throws his fists down and hits Juggernaut with a powerful blast of flames, causing some of the metal objects in the room to melt and nearby plants to light on fire.

Keeping the attack on for another minute Sunfire then begins to feel the effects of his attack. He slowly stops his assault, the beam dissipating at a slow rate. Once it's all done to his immense surprise, Sunfire see's Juggernaut still standing, although he's breathing heavily, and some burn marks can be seen along Juggernaut's body.

"Was that all ya got?" Juggernaut raggedly breaths out. "It better not, 'cause I don't want you to disappoint me, ya here?"

_'This could be more problematic than I thought,'_ Sunfire dryly thinks.

Juggernaut then crouches down, much to Sunfire's confusion. Then he explodes upwards, faster than Sunfire expects. Once near, Juggernaut wraps his massive hands around Sunfire's midsection and begins to squeeze, causing massive pain to flare up for Sunfire. Falling down, Juggernaut holds Sunfire out, fully intending to crush the X-Man between himself and the floor.

Seeing Juggernaut's plan, Sunfire forces himself to act by creating a flashbang in one of his hands. He then places the hand in front of Juggernaut's face and detonates it, forcing Juggernaut to reflexively reach for his face, freeing Sunfire. The Japanese mutant then slips out of Juggernaut's grasp and flies around, kicking the Brotherhood member in the back with a flame enhanced kick, speeding up Juggernaut's descent.

Sunfire then floats down to Juggernaut's still prone form and holds his fists out to his adversary. Charging up his energy Sunfire then attacks Juggernaut with multiple short-range, but still powerful, shotgun-like blasts, a move he and the Human Torch had come up with a few days ago.

Sunfire continues the barrage, going for hit after hit after hit, Juggernaut's ever-increasing grunts of pain keeping him going. _'Sound like this is working. Good,'_ He thinks. Rearing one arm back, Sunfire then charges it up, ready for a large attack, while his other constantly fires.

After a few more shots, Sunfire launches his arm downwards, a massively powerful concussive shot heading for Juggernaut's back.

The explosion creates a heatwave that burns everything in the room, fusing the metal together and evaporating the water in the indoor pond. Juggernaut is then sent down through many floors, grunting in pain as he slams into each descending floor. Sunfire then pushes the attack and slams his fire covered feet into Juggernaut's back, speeding up the process.

Eventually, the two end up in a cafeteria, once here Juggernaut grabs a table and manages to slam it into Sunfire's side, sending him flying into some trash cans. Juggernaut slowly, but steadily, gets up, panting in pain and rage as he turns to glare at Sunfire. "Alright," He breathes out. "Won't lie, you're stronger than I thought, good for you. But now I gotta take you down, and if you die, oh well, I'll just say I didn't know your limits."

He then plants one foot back, getting into a runner's position. Sunfire gets up and braces himself, knowing what's going to happen next. Juggernaut then explodes forward, knocking any table in his way all over the cafeteria.

Sunfire leaps out of the way, barely avoiding Juggernaut's body, as the mountain of a man runs through wall after wall, no stop in sight. Sunfire then rolls to face the wall, looking through the holes he see's Juggernaut stop, turn around, and getting ready to run again. Sunfire slowly raises his arms and powers up, aiming down towards Juggernaut.

Sunfire takes a deep, calming breath. _'Let's do this.'_

Juggernaut begins to run.

Sunfire attacks.

Through the roar of flames Sunfire can hear Juggernaut's roar of pain and determination. And his footsteps. It's hard to miss those.

Eventually Juggernaut gets close, and so, Sunfire places down a mine as he rolls away. A literal second later, and Juggernaut runs through where Sunfire just, was detonating the mine. It doesn't stop him, just as Sunfire expected, but it does cause the massive man to light on fire and shield his eyes due to being blinded from the explosion.

"_Sunfire, it's me, Marvel Girl, I'm about to bring you into a conversation with Banshee and Iceman, okay?"_ Marvel Girl's voice says in his head.

Sunfire throws another flashbang, further keeping the Juggernaut busy. _"Alright, let's go."_

"_I'll be honest wit' ye, laddies, I never actually beat the Juggernaut"_ Banshee admits from the start.

"_Lovely,"_ Sunfire dryly replies. Well, looks like he'll have to figure this out on his own.

"_But I can say this: ye can't beat him with physical strength, he's one of the strongest people I've seen. But he's as weak to mental attacks as anyone else, sadly, his helmet protects him,"_ Banshee says.

"_(_Shit)_" _Sunfire replies. Looking at Juggernaut as he flies around to avoid his swings Sunfire does finally notice the four latches connecting Juggernaut's helmet to his armor. One on either shoulder, one on the back of the head, and one on the front. _"Wait, I see latches connecting his helmet to his armor, should I detach them?"_

"_That's the way!" _Banshee compliments. _"Get the helmet off, Marvel Girl can take 'im out." _

"_Or you can call Mimic to him,"_ Iceman supplies.

"_Can't, he and Quicksilver disappeared, who knows where they are,"_ Marvel Girl replies. _"Gotta go, if I wanna survive I've gotta focus on this fight entirely. Good luck guys."_

"_Thanks,"_ Sunfire and Iceman reply.

Sunfire then floats in place as he glares at Juggernaut, studying him. Noticing Sunfire slowing down, Juggernaut slowly drops a table and glares back at him. "What?" He demands.

Sunfire doesn't answer, instead he takes the time to come up with a plan that won't get him killed. _'Juggernaut isn't the smartest of opponents I've fought, and he is only fast when he is charging, meaning I have speed and aerial superiority. I can hit him with a powerful flashbang, blind him, and go for the back latch first, then left, then right.'_

"I said, what?" Juggernaut demands again, sounding more agitated.

'_The front one's going to be problematic, and it's entirely possible that he will feel the latches disconnect. Dammit, I must do this, if I want to win,'_ Sunfire finishes planning.

"Hey! Asshole! I said-" Juggernaut begins. Before he can say more a flashbang more powerful than the others explodes right in front of his eyes, blinding him greatly. Added to the light, a heatwave engulfs him, causing Juggernaut's wounds to flare up, causing even more pain.

Sunfire shots forward and punches Juggernaut in the mouth, burning the inside of his mouth from his position. Sunfire then flips over Juggernaut's head using his helmet for leverage and manages to unlock the first latch. Keeping one hand planted firmly on his helmet Sunfire heats it up, causing Juggernaut to roar in pain as his head is heated up immensely. Sunfire then reaches over and unlocks the latch on Juggernaut's right shoulder.

Feeling the unlocking of the latches, Juggernaut blindly runs forward, slamming his shoulder, and Sunfire, into a wall. Before he can slide down the wall, Juggernaut grabs one of Sunfire's arms and swings him around before letting go, sending Sunfire into one of the knocked over tables.

Sunfire groans in pain as his back hits the edge of the table. Juggernaut then runs forward and raises his fists high, ready to slam them into Sunfire. The Japanese mutant rolls out of the way at the last second, but Juggernaut grabs his left leg and slides him into another trash can, knocking it over on top of Sunfire.

Hearing Juggernaut approach him, Sunfire kicks his feet out, sending a pillar of flame into Juggernaut's face, causing the massive man to hold up a hand to block the attack.

While recovering Sunfire feels Marvel Girl and Banshee's presence in his mind. _"How're things?" _Banshee asks.

Sunfire swipes his hand on the ground, raising it to create an arc of flame that he uses as cover to unlock the third latch. _"Three of the four latches are unlocked, all that's left is the one in front."_

"_Now, I know I don't have to tell ye this, but ye have to be extra careful wit' that one," _Banshee warns.

Juggernaut aims a punch at Sunfire, which he dodges. While Juggernaut's fist is in the ground Sunfire uses it to run up and reach for the last latch. Juggernaut sees this coming and uses his other arm to slap Sunfire away into the kitchen.

"_I know. How's Iceman?"_ Sunfire asks.

"_Hold," _Marvel Girl says. After a moment she brings Iceman into the call. _"How're things on your end, Bobby?"_

"_Blob's livid. On the bright side though, he doesn't seem to be using his absorption ability, so that's good,"_ Iceman answers. _"How's it going for you guys?"_

"_Cyclops and Havok are locked in a fight right now, Gambit's having trouble keeping Polaris down, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Other than that, we're fine,"_ Marvel Girl replies.

"_Wait, who's Polaris?"_ Iceman asks.

"_Green magnet lass,"_ Banshee answers.

"_Right. How're things for you, Sunfire?"_ Iceman continues.

Sunfire slams his hands into the ground and heats it up, warping the metal and temporarily trapping the Juggernaut. _"Three of the four latches are dealt with, but the last one's going to be a problem."_

"_Let me guess, the one in front?"_ Iceman rhetorically asks.

"_Yes."_

"_I'll leave you to it, you're gonna need all your attention on this,"_ Iceman leaves the conversation.

"_Ye've got this,"_ Banshee says before leaving.

"_Tell me when you get it done, alright?"_ Marvel Girl asks.

Sunfire lets a small smirk play on his face, appreciating her use of the word "when". _"Of course. See you in a bit."_

He then feels the mental connection end. At that moment Juggernaut frees himself of the warped metal floor and slowly marches towards Sunfire, glaring the entire way and breathing heavily due to the heavy burns all over his body. "Fuck it. I'm gonna tear you apart. Slowly. Then I'm gonna bring what's left of your body to Charlie and laugh when he starts cryin' over your corpse," Juggernaut threatens with a low, raspy voice, a stark change from his boisterous, but still raspy, voice.

Sunfire gets in a runner's position. "I'd like to see you try."

Using his arms, Sunfire leaps off the ground, flying around Juggernaut at high speeds, intentionally making a trail to blind Juggernaut. The mountain of a man swings around, trying to hit Sunfire, but the Japanese mutant expertly dodges his swings.

Sunfire holds his arm out, constantly firing balls of fire that explode in heat and blinding light, disorienting Juggernaut. Sunfire then increases his speed, practically becoming a tornado that traps Juggernaut. He then reaches out and grabs hold of the last latch, stopping entirely, much to Juggernaut's shock due to the sudden ceasing of lights.

Using one hand to unlock the latch the other fires blast after blast of concussive force at Juggernaut's face, causing damage to his eyes and lower face. Finally, Sunfire manages to unlock the last latch, and with one backflip kick that he'll surely regret later, he launches Juggernaut's helmet away.

Landing, Sunfire sees Juggernaut's face. A man in his late thirties to early forties with two scars along his right cheek, a square jaw, and short red hair glaring at him. "You're _really_ gonna regret that."

Sunfire smirks. "No, I don't think I will," He quickly jumps back and hits Juggernaut's entire head with one more concussive blast, forcing the man back a step. _"MARVEL GIRL! NOW!"_

"_On it!" _She immediately replies.

Juggernaut roars in pain as he takes many steps back, his hands thrown up and wrapped around his head in a vain attempt to block Marvel Girl out. Juggernaut spasms and throws his body around, his massive elbows breaking the walls close to him and throwing debris around. "Get out, Get out! GET OUT!" He roars.

Sunfire crouches low, a far more powerful concussive shot being built with both hands instead of one.

Juggernaut continues to spasm and shout as Marvel Girl continues her mental onslaught. Eventually Juggernaut stands stock still, completely silent. His face then shifts into a snarl as he looks up. "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?" He roars. "I'M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!" He recovers just enough to get in another runner's position, ready to take Sunfire out with him.

Takin one step forward, Juggernaut's eyes roll forward as Marvel Girl's mental attacks finally take place, but before he can fall forward Sunfire flips over Juggernaut and fires his shotgun blast into the back of his head, causing Juggernaut to slam through the ground partially, upper body indented into the floor, legs limply on the ground.

"_Well, that went well," _Marvel Girl cheerily says. _"But no time to celebrate, think you can help Iceman?"_

Sunfire nods as he exits the cafeteria and follows the path of carnage he and Juggernaut had created. _"Of course. Thank you."_

"_It's no problem,"_ Marvel Girl replies before ending the connection.

As he flies back Sunfire begins to think to himself. _'I wonder how Iceman's doing.'_

* * *

Iceman isn't really keeping a cool head.

The ice that makes up his body is far stronger than the one he uses to attack, but Blob was still able to damage him slightly. One stupid mistake allowed Blob to grab Iceman's right arm and squeeze down on it, causing the ice to crack, and since then, Blob's never given Iceman the chance to repair the damage.

Iceman uses Blob's body as a springboard by kicking off his face and landing a distance away, forcing Blob to turn around. _'Good, that keeps him away from Jubilee,'_ He then looks at his arm and begins to repair it. _'Damn, I had no idea he was so tough. I'd honestly prefer it if he weren't so angry, at least I'd know how to deal with him then.'_

Marvel Girl's presence is then felt in his mind. _"Yo, Iceman, how're ya?"_

"_Angry Blob is nowhere near as fun as Normal Blob. Did Sunfire win?"_

"_Yep, he's on his way to assist you now, just hold on, alright?" _Marvel Girl tells him.

"_Wait, you were able to take down Juggernaut, right?_" Iceman asks.

"_Yes, and I know where you're going with this," _She interrupts. _"That took a lot more effort than I thought it would, and the Brotherhood's pushing their offensive. Hell, I'm barely avoiding attacks while talking to you. You've got this, Bobby, I know you do."_

Iceman uses some leftover ice chunks to create a small army of ice gremlins that all slam themselves into Blob's body, freezing his legs over. _"Right, thanks, Jean,"_ He then exits the connection. "Alright, Bobby, you just gotta hold out until Sunfire comes in to help," He says to himself. "Or maybe until Jubilee wakes up. Whichever comes first, I won't complain."

Iceman then kicks his leg forward, icing up the floor from him to near the door to the room Jubilee is in. He then skates forward before falling on his back, spinning around as he shifts his legs into blades, sliding towards Blob as he spins on his back. "Come on, break dance moves!" He shouts as his legs cut into Blob, actually drawing some blood, forcing the massive mutant to fall to his knees.

Iceman then uses his hands to flip back on his feet. He then places his hands on the ground and uses them to propel himself forward, he brings an arm forward and shifts it into a shield with spikes sticking out of it. He lowers his head and uses his other arm as support as he slams into Blob, forcing the Brotherhood mutant to fly back a good distance thanks to the momentum he gained from sliding forward.

While Blob is on the ground Iceman creates shackles that wrap around Blob's wrists and ankles again, but this time he runs forward, leaps into the air, creates an ice hammer, and slams it down on Blob, slamming the mutant into the ground.

"Back up!"

Jumping back, Iceman barely avoids a pinwheel kick from Sunfire that slams into Blob's face, further indenting him into the ground and melting the ice around him, the ice further out being cracked.

Blob grabs Sunfire's leg and throws him into Iceman, sending the two down the hall. Blob then slowly gets up and glares at the two, now adding Sunfire to his kill list.

Sunfire and Iceman both get up and glare at him just as strongly. Sunfire then turns his head to Iceman. "Equinox."

Iceman smirks as he nods. "Equinox," He repeats.

Sunfire flies low, heading past Blob and avoiding a sloppy swing towards him. Before he passes the massive mutant, though, he throws a fire ball at his face, infuriating Blob.

Sunfire then lands a distance away, his fists glowing. "You ready?" He shouts.

Iceman stands the exact same distance away, trapping Blob between the two of them. "Ready!"

The two thrust their fists forward and fire continuous beams of fire and ice at Blob's back and front, keeping him trapped in place as the pain from the dual attacks grows exponentially. Blob's front begins to freeze over as his back burns intensely. Not sure who to attack first Blob tries to block the attacks, but it doesn't matter, the attacks keep coming.

Blob's movements become sluggish as his consciousness begins to fade, so the two eventually stop, they then watch Blob stagger around, trying to stay awake. His eyes then widen as he sees something behind Iceman. "J-Jennifer?"

The two arch their brows in confusion. _'Who the hell is Jennifer?'_ They both think.

A powerful firework arcs over Iceman's head, connecting in a brilliant explosion with Blob's head. Once the smoke fades, Blob staggers before falling over, the ground shaking upon impact.

Turning around Iceman sees a viciously smirking Jubilee standing behind him, using the wall to keep herself standing. "Take that, asshole," She mutters. Her eyes widen before she places a hand on her head. "Ow, probably should've stayed down."  
Before she falls over Iceman runs over and helps her stay up. "Nice hit, he surely won't be getting up anytime soon," Iceman compliments.

Sunfire walks forward and places a hand on Jubilee's shoulder, a rare smile on his face. "You did good, Jubilee, but you should rest, you might have a concussion."

Jubilee smiles slyly as she leans into Iceman for support. "Aw, you're worrying about me, are ya handsome? Don't worry, I'll beeee-" She trails off as she falls asleep, much to Iceman and Sunfire's delight.

Iceman sighs as he picks up Jubilee into a piggyback ride. "I'll try and get her to a safe place, you find Nightcrawler and Shadowcat and help them with that B-Mimic, alright?"

Sunfire nods before turning his body to look for them with his infrared, but when he turns his body he cringes as he grabs at his ribs, falling to a knee.

Iceman's eyes widen as he reaches for Sunfire. "Shit! Dude, you okay? Who am I kidding? No, you're not," He carefully places Jubilee down as he helps Sunfire sit next to her. "You get her to a safe place, I'll help Nightcrawler and Shadowcat."

Sunfire nods as he gets up with Iceman's help, he then gingerly picks up Jubilee and looks for a place to stay. Before he gets far, he looks at Iceman from the corner of his eye. "Be careful, alright?"

Iceman just gives him a thumbs up before creating an ice slide and heading towards his two teammates, using infrared to find their location.

* * *

**Nightcrawler and Shadowcat**

Shadowcat is absolutely fazed by their situation.

B-Mimic gains constantly teleports around, he then uses his intangibility to feint attacks, causing the two to put up their guard at the wrong moments, which he takes advantage of. He'd go for a punch to the face, forcing them to put up their arms, then he'd phase through and punch them in the gut. Out of the corner of his eye, B-Mimic sees Nightcrawler attempting a sneak attack, he just moves his head out of the way and wraps his tail tightly around Nightcrawler's neck, lifting the German mutant up.

Shadowcat then spins on one leg and kicks the base of B-Mimic's spine, just above his tail, causing the appendage to spaz out and release Nightcrawler.

Said mutant lands on his hands and spring kicks B-Mimic's back, sending him tumbling towards an uppercut courtesy of Shadowcat. Staggering back, B-Mimic phases through a punch from Nightcrawler, he then teleports behind him and puts him in a chokehold, making sure to keep him between himself and Shadowcat.

"Bring him here," B-Mimic demands.

Shadowcat gives him a confused look, but she's sure she knows who he's talking about. "Who?" Doesn't mean she's gonna go with it.

B-Mimic becomes angry as he tightens his grip around Nightcrawler's throat. "You know who! The fake!"

Nightcrawler weakly chuckles, infuriating B-Mimic further. "You seem to be mistaken, _you_ are the imposter, not Mimic," He taunts.

B-Mimic growls as he again tightens his hold around Nightcrawler's throat, but Shadowcat isn't worried, instead she smirks as she places a hand on her hip and stares at the Brotherhood mutant incredulously. "Dude, I'm just gonna say this now: the real Mimic would know that the two of us are some of the last mutants you'd wanna keep in a headlock."

Taking the cue, Nightcrawler teleports above B-Mimic, but the Brotherhood mutant quickly follows. Seeing this coming though, Nightcrawler wraps his tail around his opponents leg, flips midair, and throws him down. B-Mimic attempts to phase to avoid the damage, but Shadowcat grabs a chair and phases it with her, causing B-Mimic to land on it hard.

"Oooh, that looked like it hurt," She says. "You wanna time out?"

B-Mimic falls of the chair, futilely reaching out to strike Shadowcat. "Shut," He breathes. "Up."

B-Mimic then gets up and strikes his tail out at her, nicking her in the shoulder and the left cheek, but she avoids every other attack. "Why don't you copy Sunfire's powers? Or maybe even Blob's?" She asks.

Nightcrawler lands on B-Mimic's back and jumps off it, launching the villain face-first into the ground. "Isn't it obvious?" Nightcrawler begins. "He can't copy people if zey are too far away from him."

Shadowcat hums as she leans back to avoid a kick from B-Mimic. She then jerks forward, hitting B-Mimic in the chest with her shoulder, sending him stumbling back into Nightcrawler who teleports him up high, punches him to disorient him, then teleports back to Shadowcat's side. B-Mimic shouts as he falls to the floor.

"Isn't that a shame?" Shadowcat sarcastically says, smiling at B-Mimic's growing grimace. "_The_ Mimic is capable of copying any powers he sees."

"And he doesn't have to be nearby to use zem," Nightcrawler adds. "It's entirely possible he is using my powers right now, actually."

Faster than they expect, B-Mimic leaps off the floor and punches Nightcrawler across the face, sending the German mutant sprawling to the floor, knocked out. He then lashes out and grabs Shadowcat by the throat, lifting her up and changing his density every time she would, making sure she wouldn't escape. "Where's the smugness now?" He asks lowly.

B-Mimic's grip tightens, forcing Shadowcat to kick and let out chocked noises as her vision begins to darken. _'Probably…shouldn't…have done…that.'_

Just before her vision can go completely dark the door behind her opens. B-Mimic looks over, his eyes narrow before he drops Shadowcat to the floor. She rubs her throat and takes in deep breaths before crawling towards Nightcrawler. After making sure he's safe she looks up to see who entered. Mimic. Her Mimic.

Shadowcat feels a smile grow on her face as she looks at him, a warm feeling growing in her chest.

Mimic looks at his two friends before glaring at his Brotherhood counterpart. "Yup. Gonna kick your ass."

B-Mimic growls as he crouches low. "_I'm _going to kick _your _ass, impostor."

Mimic arches an eyebrow before looking at Shadowcat. "The hell's he talking about?"

"He can copy multiple powers at once," She answers. Shadowcat then notices his eyes widening. "Don't worry though, he can only copy the powers of the people nearby, so don't expect Cyclops beams or Wolverine claws."

Mimic nods as he slams his fists together and rotates his neck. "Well, that makes less dangerous immediately. But I should still be careful. Get Nightcrawler to a safe place, join in later, if you want to, of course."

Shadowcat gives a thumbs up before picking up Nightcrawler and phasing through some walls to get away from the fight.

Once gone Mimic bounces in place as he stares down B-Mimic. _'What to do, what to do. I could just take him out telepathically. Nah, that'd be too easy,'_ Mimic continues to mull over his strategy as B-Mimic shouts at him, about what? He doesn't care. Eventually, Mimic comes to a decision. _'Oooh baby,'_ He swaps to his Polaris powers. _'This is gonna be one hell of a test ride.'_

The two Mimics stare each other down. The X-Mimic has a smirk on his face as B-Mimic has a grimace. After a few seconds of staring they explode forward.

The battle for the title of Mimic has begun.

* * *

**Red Team**

Back at the hangar the fighting continues.

Mystique and Destiny are nowhere to be seen. Pyro manages to take down Banshee, but Storm swoops in and defends his defenseless body, currently locked in a fight of fire and lightning against Pyro. Multiple Man eventually wakes up, taking away the number's advantage for the X-Men as Rogue loses the powers, he uses his clones to rush Colossus and Thunderbird, keeping the two busy with a never ending army of clones. Polaris currently has Rogue trapped by metal sheets and is trying to do the same against Gambit. Marvel Girl and Scarlet Witch are still locked in their power battle, neither gaining any real footing.

Like the fight between the two powerful women, Cyclops and Havok are locked in a power struggle of their own. The two have their own section of the hangar to themselves, a beam struggle of red and blue going strong for the past four minutes, much to the chagrin of both parties. _'Dammit. Just. Stay. Down!'_ Cyclops mentally shouts.

_'Oh, for god's sake. Fall down, asshole!'_ Havok thinks.

Both sides of the struggle are immensely surprised at the other's staying power, deep down they admit, they're impressed. During the struggle Havok wonders who Cyclops is, every other person hit by his attack hasn't recovered like he has unless they copied his powers, could absorb energy, or had superhuman durability.

Cyclops thinks along similar lines, but the theory from Banshee constantly comes to the forefront of his mind. Family members having a resistance to each other's attacks. Hell, by the looks of him, Havok would be about sixteen, Alex would be about that age right now as well. And his blond hair adds to the theory, Alex was also blond. Realizing that he's losing his footing, Cyclops throws those thoughts aside. For now.

Realizing that this is going nowhere Cyclops begins to devise a plan. Sparing a glance to his right (thanks to his enhanced spatial awareness) Cyclops sees some boxes perfect for temporary cover. He then sees a trail he can follow, using boxes, torn panels, and the nearby Brotherhood jet as cover to help him flank Havok.

Finalizing his plan Cyclops stops his part of the struggle completely, letting Havok's beam slam into the wall at the opposite end.

Feeling the loss of weight from Cyclops' attack, Havok immediately stops, once the smoke clears Cyclops is nowhere to be seen. Havok tries to listen, but thanks to the nearby battle his ears aren't reliable at all. Looking around, Havok keeps an eye out for any hint of Cyclops. The sound of something falling to his right catches his attention, Havok quickly turns and blasts the boxes apart. Nothing.

Havok takes a deep, calming breath. _'Okay, calm down, Alex, he's just messin' with you. Besides, he might be RIGHT BEHIND YOU!' _Havok turns around, ready to catch Cyclops by surprise, but he isn't behind him. _'Fu-'_

One quick ruby flash later and Havok is sent flying by a concussive force into one of their jets, slamming into the side of the vehicle. Havok groans as he feels his bones rattle from the impact, he slowly opens his eyes but everything's shaky.

He then sees two Cyclopes running at him, their fists raised high, ready to punch him. The fist connects with the side of Havok's head, causing the shaking and the pain in his head to intensify tenfold. Cyclops then grabs Havok by his suit and rolls back, bringing Havok down with him, he then places his feet on Havok's chest and kicks out, sending Havok into some metal panels.

Havok gets up with an attack aimed at Cyclops, but the spot where he was standing is now empty, much to Havok's confusion. "Where the hell are you?"

"Does it matter?" Cyclops' voice echoes from what sounds like everywhere.

"I knew it was a bad idea to make the inside entirely outta metal," Havok mutters bitterly. "If you want a good fight, then yeah, it kinda does."

Cyclops is quiet for a moment as he looks down at Havok from his vantage point. "Why did you join the Brotherhood? You seemed pretty against killing Mimic earlier, most of your friends would have been all for it."

"Because I ain't like them," Havok strongly replies, still looking everywhere to find Cyclops.

"Still doesn't answer my question," Cyclops says from his new spot behind Havok.

Havok clenches his fist and grits his teeth, the circle on his chest glowing blue and letting out a whining noise as energy builds up. "You wanna know why? 'Cause Magneto promised to help me find my brother, that's why."

"And why do you want to find your brother?" Cyclops continues to question, now hiding to Havok's right.

"And why should I tell you?" Havok retorts. A flash of ruby red catches his attention, a smirk grows on his face. "Know what? I think I should ask some questions."

The little flash of red reappears to the left and a little elevated from Havok's position. "Why not?" Cyclops concedes. "Ask away."

"Why'd you join the X-Men?" Havok asks.

"Because it's right," Is Cyclops' simple answer.

Havok's face drops into a deadpan expression. "Really? That's it? "Because it's right". You have any idea how boring that sounds?"

Cyclops is silent for a moment, causing Havok to tense up, expecting another attack. He then hears a sigh. Cyclops is now to the right and elevated. "My father always told us that if you can do something, do it, no ifs, ands, or buts. After his death I decided to live by that."

For a second everything stops for Havok, his father would say the same thing to. Doesn't help that Cyclops looks to be around eighteen or nineteen, the same age Scott would be around this time. His brown hair adds to the theory. _'No, who am I kidding? Role models tell that to the people looking up to them all the time, nothing more,'_ Havok then realizes that Cyclops is behind him. _'Now's as a good a time as any.'_

Havok whips around and fires a concussive blast at Cyclops, successfully getting a hit.

Cyclops flips through the air and recovers. Before hitting the ground, he fires his concussive beams at the ground, keeping him aloft for a little longer. Seeing this causes a memory to come back to Havok.

Falling down with Scott in one parachute. Their dad's plane burning as it falls through the sky. The chute failing to open. At the last second, he sees nothing but ruby red and blinding blue. Then nothing.

A box is thrown at Havok's head, knocking him out of his memories. Shaking his head to recover Havok sees Cyclops standing a distance away, another box raised high to throw at him. "Hey!" Cyclops shouts. "I thought you wanted a fair fight?"

Havok growls as his chests and fists begin to glow blue. "I do."

He then shoots forward. Cyclops drops the box and charges up his optic blasts, ready to fire once Havok gets close enough.

**Next time: Summers Vacation**

* * *

**And there we have it, the end of chapter twenty-five! Next chapter will be the battle between the two, with some showing of the battle of the Mimics, and we'll see Psylocke and Wolverine again. Stay tuned for that one! I've been excited to write that chapter ever since I found out about the other Mimic. **

**Some quick notes about the chapter: one, I didn't expect to write so many references during the Sunfire vs Juggernaut fight, and yet, here we are. And the whole Jennifer thing with Blob was meant as my way to humanize him. At first it was just gonna be a one and done thing after this chapter, but then I decided to make Jennifer a more important character in the future, which will also explain why his reaction against Jubilee was so…severe. **

**Oh, something important happened to this chapter, it's entirely in third person! Well, it's not that important, but it's interesting, and we get to see a little bit of Mimic from an outside perspective. Speaking of that, in the future, we'll get two more narrators, one for a single arc and another after an important plot point is reached, after that the story will flip between two narrators. **

**By the time I finished this chapter I've also bought Final Fantasy VII Remake, and man am I excited! I have the original on my PC, and I'm around the part where the Remake ends, but I'm so excited to see what they do to change the story. I can't wait. **

**That's all from me! Please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next Thursday!**


	26. Summers Vacation

**I've been excited for this chapter. By the way, Mimic's meeting with Magneto will be explained in this chapter, I forgot to mention that last time, sorry. **

**Quick note: I got **_**Final Fantasy VII Remake**_**, and holy fuck nuts it is amazing! By the time I started writing this chapter (April 19) I've just fallen into the Sector 5 Church and officially met Aerith, and let me say, the future games are gonna hurt. Aaand now I might just make a self-insert FF7R fanfic. We'll see. **

**That's all from me up here, on with the story!**

* * *

**Summers Vacation**

Cyclops ducks, avoiding Havok's flying body. Once the Brotherhood mutant lands he whips around and shoots Cyclops in the back with a concussive blast, sending the leader of the X-Men only stumbling forward, mainly because he expected the blast.

_'Hitting each other with our blasts gets us nowhere, need to be more creative,'_ Cyclops thinks as he tilts his head to avoid another blast. Cyclops then decides to go on the defensive, avoiding Havok's blasts and using the terrain as cover to continue making his plan.

Havok growls in annoyance as Cyclops avoids another attack. "Dammit, stop running and stand your ground!" He fires a continuous beam, following Cyclops as he runs ahead of the beam.

Out of the corner of his eye Cyclops notices that the ground beneath Havok is damaged, and some panels are curled upwards. Perfect. Cyclops drops low and braces for the impact from Havok's attack, only being pushed back a little before grabbing hold of the floor, the metal digging into his fingers. Gritting his teeth, Cyclops fires a burst of energy at the floor beneath Havok, upending it and sending the mutant flying in the air. Cyclops then pushes the attack and hits Havok while he is in the air, sending the mutant flying into the wall next to the now repaired hangar bay doors.

A Multiple Man clone is thrown in front of Cyclops. The two make eye contact for a moment before Cyclops blasts him into one of the wheels of the _Blackbird,_ knocking him out.

While still on the ground Havok shakes his head to regain his bearings. A high-pitched noise then fills his ears, looking up he sees a pink card coming his way. He raises an arm to defend himself, but thankfully Polaris uses the metal floor beneath him to create a shield, blocking the powerful explosion form colliding with him.

Havok smirks in thanks but Polaris' eyes widen as she looks behind him. "Look out!" She shouts. One of Gambit's cards collides with her side, sending her sprawling towards the ground.

"Lorna!" Havok shouts. He is then hit with a blast from Cyclops in the back, his front slamming into the metal panel from Polaris, causing his head to explode in pain.

Cyclops then rushes forward and pins one of Havok's arms behind him and wraps his other arm around his neck. Cyclops continues by kicking out Havok's right leg and falling backwards with his Brotherhood counterpart, sending Havok down headfirst to the ground.

Havok's head slams into the ground, causing his vision to explode in light and sound. He then feels Cyclops pull back his other arm, bringing the two together. Havok then feels a handcuff over his left wrist. _'Where the hell'd he get handcuffs!?'_ Havok attempts to fire energy from his chest into the ground, but he feels his energy sap away. _'Dammit, power dampeners.' _

Cyclops flips Havok on his back and keeps a knee on his chest. "Look, just stay here until this is all over, okay? I have some questions for you," Cyclops says.

Havok stares up at him, shocked at the request. "Seriously? You're gonna handcuff me here and ask me to just wait!? The hell do you think I am?"

_'My brother,'_ Cyclops thinks. "A defeated terrorist," He says aloud.

Havok scoffs. "Magneto was right about you guys, you only see us as "terrorist" 'cause it makes you feel so sure about your crusade, doesn't it?"

Although he couldn't tell, Cyclops looks at Havok with furrowed eyebrows. "You do know Magneto's killed countless people, right?"

"Do you know the type of people Magneto's killed?" Havok counters. "You know what type of humans the Brotherhood goes after?"

Cyclops narrows his eyes, interested to see what Havok has to say. "No, go on."

"Those who deserve it! The humans that go out of their way to make mutant lives hell, the people who do nothing to help us, that's who!" Havok shouts.

Cyclops gets up and looks down at Havok, his arms crossed and his beam ready for any sudden movements. "Okay, we've known that already. Magneto's always sure to kill specific people. I mean, when we first fought him some soldiers ended up dead while others were spared, we later found out those soldiers were racist. But that leads me to my next question, what about the innocent humans that'll be killed because of your plan?"

"Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, Cyke."

Havok's handcuffs break, courtesy of Scarlet Witch. Feeling the immediate power surge Havok fires a blast up, Cyclops responds in kind. The sudden impact creates an explosion that sends Cyclops flying in the air, and before he falls on a sharp piece of metal fully capable of killing him Beast jumps over and saves him, much to Marvel Girl's relief.

"Even without the _Blackbird_ you are still capable of flying high, my friend," Beast jokes.

Cyclops rubs his head as Beast sets him down. "Yeah, just don't tell Angel, I think he'd be jealous."

"I would!"

Beast then pushes Cyclops out of the way and leaps back from a metal sheet slamming into where they just were. Looking up they see Polaris looking down at them, her eyes giving off a faint green glow. Gambit attempts to hit the back of her head with his staff but Havok hits him with a blast, sending him falling into the ground, slamming headfirst and knocking him out.

Polaris then uses the same panel that almost crushed two of the original X-Men to lift Havok up beside her, giving him aerial superiority. Polaris then creates a multitude of sharp metal shards and aims them at the two, the circle on Havok's chest glows blue.

"It has been some time since we fought together, hasn't it?" Beast says casually.

Cyclops nods. "Yeah, it has. Let's remedy that."

The two roll opposite directions as Havok's blast and Polaris' metal shards slam into where they were just standing. Beast then leaps off one of the Brotherhood jets and uses the metal currently held by Polaris to reach her, getting in a scratch before a metal hammer slams into his side, bringing him down.

Cyclops continuously avoids Havok's attacks, all while slowly getting closer. Eventually the leader of the X-Men is under the panel, but just as he begins his attack the floor beneath him shifts, causing his beam to hit some of Multiple Man's clones instead. "Thanks!" Thunderbird shouts.

The ground beneath Cyclops begins to act up, trapping him in a metal tornado that slowly closes in on him. _'Damn, this isn't looking good. What to do, what to do,'_ He thinks. As the metal tornado nears Cyclops notices a gap, quickly charging up his energy he hits that section of the tornado with a powerful blast, blowing half of it away. He leaps out just as the metal shards collide, a sharp shrill noise invading his ears as metal scratches against metal.

From the corner of his sight Cyclops notices a metal fist flying at him, so at the last second, he hits it with a blast that sends it towards Beast. The blue furred mutant sees the fist coming and backflip kicks it upwards, hitting the underside of Havok's metal panel and sending him falling.

While he tumbles through the air Havok corrects himself and fires his beam downwards, using it to slow his descent. Watching this causes Cyclops to stop and stare, memories of his parent's death coming back full force.

Once he lands Havok notices Cyclops staring at him. "What?"

"N-nothing, just-" Cyclops begins but is interrupted by Polaris sending multiple metal pieces the size of baseballs at him and Beast, keeping them pinned down. "Dammit! We need to take her out, she has too much power in here."

The two attempt to get closer, Cyclops would fire concussive blasts, but Polaris' storm of metal works in keeping them pinned down.

Out of the corner his eye Thunderbird notices their struggle, and he can hear Cyclops' shout through the battle in the hangar. He grabs two of the clones by the front of their shirts and throws them at Polaris, Colossus sees this and throws two more clones as well. The four Multiple Men crash into Polaris, sending her falling down and stopping the metal storm.

Beast quickly uses his enhanced agility to flip towards Polaris and the clones, he swipes the four aside and pinches a pressure point on Polaris' neck, immobilizing the girl. "I really am sorry, but your father is attempting genocide on a mass scale. Surely you must see why we want to stop you."

Polaris looks up at him and glares. "The hell did you do to me. Why can't I move?"

"Oh, it's just a pressure point that stops you from using your body from the neck down, a rather useful point to know about, wouldn't you say," Beast looks up, nods, before looking back down at Polaris, an apologetic frown on his face. "I really am sorry for this, but you are far too dangerous to be left unchecked."

Polaris isn't confused for long. Feeling a hand touch her cheek she immediately feels drained, quickly, everything fades to black as she fades to unconsciousness.

Havok's attention is drawn by her screams. Looking over he sees Beast and Rogue standing over Polaris, where Rogue's hand touches her cheek black lines stem from it on Polaris' face. "LORNA!" He shouts.

Using the distraction to his advantage Cyclops rolls out of the beam struggle and hits the side of Havok's face with a blast, sending him staggering back.

Seeing what happened Colossus immediately enters his metal form, the combined power from him and Thunderbird pushing back the Multiple Man clones at an accelerated rate. Storm gets in a good hit on Pyro, Banshee then pushes the attack, Angel would then swoop down and hit Pyro with bombing runs, eventually taking the fire powered mutant down. Marvel Girl and Scarlet Witch are still fighting, their abilities tearing up the hangar around them. After defeating Pyro, Angel would then keep Toad on his toes, giving the amphibian mutant no time to breath before Angel swoops down and kicks both legs into Toad's chest, sending him out of the hangar.

Havok then recovers and looking around doesn't like what he's seeing. It seems as though the Brotherhood's losing the fight. Havok growls before firing a blast into the ground at an angle, sending him flying towards Cyclops. During his flight Rogue would bring up metal panels but Havok would shoot more blasts, expertly avoiding the panels. Increasing his speed Havok would then tackle Cyclops, sending the two out of the hangar and flying past Toad's unconscious form.

Out of the corner of his eye Cyclops notices Sunfire and Jubilee.

The two eventually hit the floor and begin rolling down the hallway into another room, punching and kicking each other as they do. Havok even tries to bite Cyclops' ear. Once the two stop Cyclops rears his head back before hitting Havok with a headbutt, he then throws him off of him and hits the ground beneath Havok at an angle, causing the metal to shoot up, sending Havok flying.

"You said you wanted to find your brother," Cyclops begins.

Havok growls as he plants his hands and feet down, ready to fire an extra powerful blast. "Yeah, what's it to you?"

"I've got one really important question for you: what if he's a human?" Cyclops asks.

He smirks upon seeing Havok's determined face falter. _'Guess he didn't think about that.'_

"I mean you joined to find him, right? But Magneto's plan involves killing the entire human race, what if your brother's a human?" Cyclops continues. "Oh well, gotta break a few eggs, right?"

"SHUT UP!" Havok roars as he raises his fists off the ground, firing his powerful beam towards Cyclops. The leader of the X-Men barely avoids the attack. After rolling away from it he feels the heat from the beam on the left side of his body.

Taking a chance, Cyclops slowly reaches out and puts his hand in the beam. _'Would you look at that, it's a little hot, but I'm not losing my hand,'_ He then brings his hand out of the beam and walks towards Havok, who is currently unaware that Cyclops is walking towards him calmly.

The beam begins to die down, and Havok pants deeply as he uses his hands and knees to keep himself steady. Opening his eyes, he sees Cyclops' feet, following the trail he finds Cyclops standing over him. Havok closes his eyes, fully expecting an attack, but after a moment of nothing he looks back up to see Cyclops still studying him. "What?" Havok demands.

"What's your name?" Is Cyclops' simple question. "Because my name's Sc-"

A gunshot interrupts Cyclops. He reflexively reaches towards his back, feeling the sting of the bullet but grateful that it didn't pierce his armor. _'Gotta thank Nolan for letting us copy his armor, that could've been bad.'_

Turning around the two find Mystique waiting at the doorway, her gun smoking and her eyes slightly wide, fully expecting Cyclops to drop after being shot. She then shoots again, emptying her clip into Cyclops' chest, the bullets do nothing but sting slightly as they impact with his armor.

Mystique growls in annoyance as she reloads her gun. "What kind of armor are you wearing?"

Havok slowly gets up, his eyes on Mystique the entire time. "What the hell, Raven? I thought we were supposed to capture, not kill."

Mystique glares at Havok before looking back at Cyclops. "Havok, that is Cyclops, the field leader of the X-Men, if we can take him down the others will follow suit, gaining us an easy win. Besides, what's that saying you always use? Ah, right, gotta break a few eggs."

Cyclops turns, hoping to quickly tell Havok his name but the blond mutant just punches his cheek, sending Cyclops stumbling back. The two Brotherhood mutants then circle in on Cyclops. The leader of the X-Men sighs as he charges up his beam. _'Go for Mystique first, once she's out of the way I can talk to Ha-Alex. I can talk to Alex.'_

Havok then gets ready to fire at Cyclops, beginning the two versus one match.

* * *

**Earlier**

Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit!

Oh, flying eight-balled unicorn shit.

Why couldn't it be Mastermind? I've already fought him before, dammit universe.

Standing in the doorway, staring me down is the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy, Magneto, the Master of Magnetism. Is my heart beating? Let me check…Yeah, it's beating.

Magneto folds his arms before floating towards us, his eyes still on me. "I would say you must be the newest soldier for Charles' crusade, but current circumstances would say otherwise."

I gulp as I take a step back, ready to use my speed to get out of here at a moment's notice. "Y-yeah, you're right. Technically."

Magneto hums as his eyes continue to study me with a laser focus, making me feel small. "You are Mimic, yes? Avalanche has told us some severely biased opinions of you, what did happen between the two of you, I wonder."

"Oh, Mimic just stole his girlfriend, that's all," Quicksilver quips.

I feel a blush grow on my face as I glare at him. "No one, steals Kitty. Besides, they were already broken up when we recruited her."

Magneto chuckles slightly. "Ah, "Kitty" what a…cute name. And which one is she? The one who can absorb powers, or maybe the one with the yellow trench coat. Ah, but the one fighting Mr. Rankin alongside the teleporter is another possibility."

Wait, who's Rankin?

"Who's Rankin? What're his powers?" I ask.

"I won't answer that question, but you should know he's excited to fight you," Quicksilver answers.

I begin to head towards the door, but Magneto stops me. "A moment, Mimic."

Strange, he easily could've made the floor wrap around me, Asteroid M's entirely metal on the inside, he has full control over everything. And yet, he's only talked to me for the moment, may as well listen.

"Why do you fight for Charles?" Is his simple question. "I was able to hear the end of your encounter with my son, you claim to understand my actions, and yet, here you are, fighting for a man who would rather roll over and accept what's given to him instead of fight for what you truly deserve. Why?"

"Because it's right," Is my answer.

Magneto shakes his head and chuckles as Quicksilver scoffs. "Sounding just like Cyclops," The younger one mutters.

"The term "because it is right" is all based on perspective," Magneto begins. "What is right to you may not be right to other mutants. Like you said, there are _some _"good" humans among the planet, but have they done anything to help? No. Anytime a human is on the news regarding mutants it is always about how we must be wiped out, with no chance to explain ourselves."

"W-well, that's 'cause all the asshole humans are the one with the power, if anyone goes against them then they'll have practically everyone on their case," I counter, but I can tell it's weak, especially if Magneto's reaction is any indication.

"What's the saying again? "The only way for evil men to win is if good men do nothing"? What is one person's reputation compared to a species of people, a species who will, might I remind you, one day take over the Earth?" Magneto argues.

"Are your parents human?" Quicksilver asks suddenly.

"Um, yeah, well, my Dad for sure, not one hundred percent sure about Mom," I answer.

"Why's that?" The speedster asks.

"Well, I'm Mister Sinister's grandkid from her side of the family," I actually see slight surprise on Magneto's face. "I mean, she hasn't shown any powers, but I think it's possible."

"Hm, interesting," Magneto hums. "Have they done anything to help mutants?"

"Well, yeah. After your people attacked the school, we had the students go home, those who's families abandoned them are staying at my place, even if my neighbors are against it," I answer. "What, you gonna spare them?"

"No. But they will be remembered," Magneto answers. He then sighs deeply. "I will ask again, why do you fight for Charles?"

I think it over this time. They are, well, right about one thing, the phrase "because it's right" is basic, nothing to it. Dammit, he's also right about the mutant perspective thing too. After the fight with Sinister I remember Angel and Forge talking about some mutants they rescued, but these guys said they didn't want our help 'cause we don't do enough, that really stuck with me. And then there was Vanessa's reaction to my recruitment, she wasn't exactly happy that Beast wasn't there.

"Yeah, I'll admit it, the Professor's dream is hard, fighting for people that hate and fear us, hoping that one day they'll accept us, it seems a little like a pipe dream. And yours does seem like we'd get quicker results, wipe the humans out, boom, Earth is now ours," I begin. I notice a small smirk on Magneto's face and a slight look of regret on Quicksilver's. "But that's only a short-term idea. Think about it, eventually mutants will start fighting each other again, this time on a large scale, what with their being no MCU or Sentinel Services to hide from. I'm honestly not sure if I'll get to see peace between humans and mutants in my time, but I'll still do this for the future generations. _That _is what Xavier's dream is about, and that's why I fight for it."

Magneto stares me down, a frown set on his face before he sighs and shakes his head. "You are the first, and so far, only X-Man to hold a conversation with me, and might I say, I am rather disappointed in your response," He steps aside, creating an opening between me and the exit. "Go now, before I change my mind."

With one quick nod I speed out of the room, intent on finding Shadowcat and this Rankin guy. While running my thoughts go back to the confrontation, and holy shit I actually survived that. I deserve a medal. But seriously though, I never really thought Magneto would be so convincing, if I weren't so sure of my stance, he probably would've convinced me. That's a scary thought.

I stop once I realize something important, how am I supposed to find this Rankin, Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat?

The walls around me shift, arrows pointing me presumably to the fight. Stopping to look around I eventually find a camera pointing at me, the arrow on the wall moves back and forth, urging me to go. Well, if he wanted me dead, he'd have killed me during our talk, wouldn't he?

Once I reach the room, I find Nightcrawler knocked out on the ground, and this Rankin guy strangling Shadowcat and lifting her in the air. Yeah, I'm not having any of that.

He looks like a dude in his late twenties to early thirties. He's blond with blue eyes and he wears a blue and white suit, a cowl similar to the one Angel, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Gambit have.

After the door opens the two look at me, Shadowcat has a look of relief on her face while Rankin glares at me, he then drops her, letting her go and grab Nightcrawler.

Looking at him I notice that he has the same fine coat of fur as Nightcrawler, but when he turns to look at me instead of bumping into the table, he phases through it. Interesting.

I just look at my friends before glaring at him. I crack my knuckles. "Yup. Gonna kick your ass."

He growls and crouches low, his tail poised for a strike. "_I'm_ going to kick _your _ass, impostor."

I arch an eyebrow, confused at his meaning. I turn to look at Shadowcat. "The hell's he talking about?"

"He can copy multiple powers at once," She answers. Shadowcat then notices my eyes widening. "Don't worry though, he can only copy the powers of the people nearby, so don't expect Cyclops beams or Wolverine claws."

I nod as he slams his fists together and rotates his neck. "Well, that makes him less dangerous immediately. But I should still be careful. Get Nightcrawler to a safe place, join in later, if you want to, of course."

Shadowcat gives a thumbs up before picking up Nightcrawler and phasing through some walls to get away from the fight.

Once gone I bounce in place and stare down B-Mimic. _'What to do, what to do. I could just take him out telepathically. Nah, that'd be too easy,'_ I continue to mull over my strategy as B-Mimic shouts at me, about what? I don't care. Eventually, I come to a decision. _'Oooh baby,'_ I swap to my Polaris powers. _'This is gonna be one hell of a test ride.'_

I'm gonna beat this dude up.

* * *

**Wolverine**

Currently the fight between Wolverine and Sabretooth is reaching new levels. With their feral states the physical capabilities of the two has increased, healing factors included. Wolverine stabs his claws into Sabretooth's head, the tips sticking out of the top, and throws Sabretooth into a boulder. He then runs forward and stabs his claws into Sabretooth's shoulders repeatedly, blood flying from the wounds.

Sabretooth then lifts his knee and slams it into Wolverine's abdomen, winding the mutant. The wounds in his shoulders heal over then he lashes out and grabs Wolverine by the sides of his head, the claws of his thumbs digging into the feral X-Man's eyes. Sabretooth then walks forward, pushing Wolverine back and headbutts twice before slamming Wolverine's head into the ground.

Sabretooth goes for a head stomp, but Wolverine's claws lash out and cut off Sabretooth's right foot, causing him to stumble and fall over. Before falling over, Sabretooth kicks Wolverine's side with his other foot, rolling Wolverine a distance away.

Before getting up Wolverine's hand happens to land on a rather large, but still small enough to hold, rock. Once Sabretooth gets close enough, he lashes out and slams the rock into the side of the Brotherhood feral mutant's head, blood spurting out of his mouth and nose. Wolverine then stabs his claws into Sabretooth's abdomen and lifts him up before slamming him down.

Wolverine lifts his claws and stabs them down constantly, eventually the sounds of slamming becomes wet as blood from Sabretooth begins to pool down.

With his other arm, Sabretooth stabs his claws into Wolverine's left arm and manages to scratch down, creating five large gashes running down his arm. He then rears his arm back and slashes what he can of Wolverine's face, the hit dislodging Wolverine's claws from his body. Sabretooth then gets up and wraps an arm around Wolverine's neck, cutting off his air and he then bends Wolverine's upper body back, all while removing Wolverine's cowl and slashing at his face.

Wolverine slowly reaches his arm up, he then quickly stabs his claws backwards, the outermost one stabbing into Sabretooth's eye. He then bucks his back out, knocking Sabretooth off of him. Wolverine then stabs his claws into Sabretooth's left hand, keeping him pinned down, he then stabs his other claws into Sabretooth's neck, causing the Brotherhood mutant to choke on his blood.

Sabretooth lashes out with his unpinned claw, but Wolverine manages to dodge it. After his leg finally regenerates Sabretooth kicks Wolverine in the back, getting him off of Sabretooth but causing the claws to slice more of his neck and arm as Wolverine tumbles away.

Sabretooth slowly gets up, his damaged hand holding his neck as they both regenerate. He and Wolverine glare at each other as they crouch low and circle each other again. Another moment of silence. Once a pebble tumbles down the two of them roar as they leap at each other.

Round two is a go.

* * *

**Psylocke**

'_Where the hell are you? Now that I think about it, how will I know which one's them? Eh, their mental signature's have to be different from the Brotherhood's,'_ Psylocke thinks.

While searching for Professor X and Forge, Psylocke hears the battles throughout Asteroid M. Loud footsteps and smashing noises followed by the asteroid shaking, feral growls and skin being torn by blades, and two blurs, one blue and silver the other black and orange running by her.

'_Damn, this place is becoming a warzone,'_ Psylocke thinks. _'I'm kind of happy I joined the X-Men,' _Her thoughts then go to Angel, a sly smirk growing on her face. _'Scratch that, more than happy.'_

Psylocke then becomes serious as she doubles down on her hunt. While scanning she finds a problem, some of the rooms in Asteroid M are blocked from her powers, causing problems. If one room were blocked then she'd know to go there, where else would the two be? But multiple rooms are blocked, causing problems for her. _'I'd say most of them must be their personal rooms, which would be about…sixteen rooms? But I feel seventeen dead zones. That last one must be where they are. But which one's the last one?'_

As she contemplates this, she reaches an elevator, another scan reveals that the dead zones are two floors up. While going up, Psylocke hides in the corner that hides her from the opening doors, a psionic sword ready as she anticipates an attack.

The doors open, Psylocke does a mental scan and finds no one waiting for her, but she still dashes out of the elevator, a purple blur running through the hallway before it stops behind another potted plant. She peeks her head out to find the hallway still empty, but she's still cautious.

Slowly she gets out of her cover and heads towards the first dead zone which happens to be the first door to her left. Opening the door, she finds a bedroom, this one's spartan, but there is a treadmill in it. "Quicksilver's room," She mutters aloud.

Right next to it is another room, this one more personal. The bed has scarlet red blankets and there is a black and red carpet in the center of the room. The open closet shows some clothes, most of the shirts being scarlet red with some green here and there. "Scarlet Witch," She mutters again.

The rest of the dead zones are all spread out, so she can't exactly check room after room, running through her list. Another scan has the same result, no one in range and the other fifteen dead zones still there. While walking Psylocke notices a camera, it isn't aimed at her, but she takes advantage of her position and goes for the camera. She leaps up and runs along the wall, upon reaching the camera she grabs it and uses gravity to bring it down with her.

The camera slams into the floor, exploding in a flash of sparks and metal shards. Psylocke smirks at her small victory. As soon as she looks up, she realizes that there is someone else here.

Immediately she feels another presence attempt to enter her mind. She quickly puts up her mental defenses, but the invader has already caused some damage and she feels a headache already starting. _'Dammit, I was careless.'_

"_I agree with you on that one," _A haughty voice replies.

Entering her mental landscape, she finds Mastermind standing a distance away, an insufferable smirk she'd do anything to punch off of him on his face. _"You're Mastermind? A lot less impressive than I thought you'd be. Shorter too,"_ Psylocke begins.

Mastermind's smirk disappears, much to Psylocke's amusement. _"Ah, yes, simple playground insults. I should have expected more from a member of the X-Men."_

"_Oooh, look at me, I'm Mastermind, and I'm so much smarter than everyone,"_ Psylocke mocks. _"Whatever, lets just get this over with so I can save my teammates."_

Mastermind sighs before his presence increases. _"Fine. Let's."_

* * *

**Cyclops**

Cyclops barely avoids a gunshot aimed for his exposed face from Mystique, but while he's crouched low Havok hits him with a concussive blast, sending him off his feet.

Mystique shoots at Cyclops more, thankfully his armor stops the bullets. Cyclops is double thankful that she seems to only use pistols, anything bigger and he'd be having problems.

Cyclops ducks under a swing from Havok, he then grabs his outstretched arm and hits him with a weaker optic blast, avoiding anything too strong to hinder future negotiations. And speaking of negotiations, any time Cyclops tries to talk to him Mystique's attacks intensify, further confirming Cyclops' theory.

Havok is his little brother, Alexander Summers.

'_She's gotta be my top priority, but I've gotta avoid Havok's attacks,' _He looks around. _'And where Mystique is Destiny usually isn't far away. Where is she?'_

Havok gets in a punch on the left side of Cyclops' face, then Mystique kicks the right side of his face. Havok then goes in for a headbutt, but he recoils due to impacting with Cyclops' visor, causing pain to flash around his forehead. The two shake their heads as Mystique goes for an uppercut, hitting Cyclops in the chin.

She then places her hands on his head and flips over, hitting his back with her knees. Havok then tackles Cyclops who stumbles towards him. They slam into the giant fish tank on the other side of the room, shattering the glass and causing water and fish to cover the floor.

After some struggling, and avoiding two punches from Havok, Cyclops pushes him back. He opens his mouth to speak but a smoke bomb erupts at his feet, the smoke entering his mouth and causing him to cough.

Looking around Cyclops is still blind, but he can see Havok's energy building up. He barely rolls out of the way. _'Mimic was right, I should get an infrared option for my visor,'_ He thinks.

He barely avoids a gunshot before lashing out, getting a hit in on Mystique. She then retaliates with a kick to his side. Cyclops then wraps an arm around her leg, keeping it pinned between his side and arm. He then spins around, swinging Mystique before letting go just as the smoke begins to dissipate, slamming her into Havok.

"Hey, Havok! My n-"

Another gunshot rings out, this one hitting his neck. Cyclops chokes before grasping at his neck, looking up he finds Destiny waiting at the door, her gun barrel smoking. Cyclops growls as Mystique and Havok get up, the three then begin to circle him.

One moment of silence, then Cyclops aims down and fires a powerful blast, causing the metal of the ground to explode outwards, sending the three falling. Cyclops then fires a beam at Mystique, keeping her pinned down. Destiny also stays down, her injury from earlier throbbing, causing her to regret her decision to help fight Cyclops.

"Hey, Havok! One more time! My name is S-"

A bullet hits his leg, causing him to cry out in pain and hop around on one foot. _'Dammit, dammit. DAMMIT!'_ Cyclops thinks in anger. Looking up he studies the two, while Mystique is more dangerous, Destiny's less skilled, and her injury makes her an easier target. But Mystique will defend Destiny with everything she has, making taking her out more difficult.

He could focus on Mystique; Destiny would do the same Mystique would for her but less effectively. But there's Havok, he can make it hard. Doesn't help that Mystique's one of the most dangerous fighters he's ever come across.

Of course, Cyclops can just go the direct route and tackle Havok, that way they'd be too close for Mystique and Destiny to get a good shot in, he can tell him then. Decisions, decisions.

Destiny and Mystique start shooting at Cyclops, Havok shooting quick bolts as well. Cyclops would then dodge the bullets, some hit him, but they didn't do much damage, and he'd stay low, giving Havok's attacks less concussive power behind them.

Cyclops would then leap forward, rolling midair as bullets and energy would whiz by him. While spinning he hits Mystique with a powerful blast, cracking two of her ribs and sending her slamming into the wall behind her.

Cyclops hides behind turned over metal bench, the bullets ricocheting off of it, Havok's blasts being the only things causing any damage. Cyclops then quickly peeks out and fires a blast that hits Destiny in the chest, sending her sliding towards Mystique.

Cyclops hides behind the desk again, silent for a moment, waiting for another interruption. Nothing. "Havok! Listen to me, dammit!"

Havok's attacks stop, giving Cyclops some hope. "Be quick about it, once Mystique gets back up, she's gonna give you holy hell for hurting Destiny," He warns.

"What's your name? Mine's Sc-"

A small pellet rolls next to Cyclops.

It explodes, revealing itself to be a flashbang.

'_OH, COME ON!'_ Cyclops mentally shouts in rage as everything becomes bright and his ears begin to ring.

While blind, Cyclops feels a body slam into him, two fists punching his face. Once his eyes clear he finds Mystique sitting on top of him, her being the one punching him. He tries to hit her with an optic blast but as soon as his visor glows brighter she slams her fists on it, causing it to slightly dig into his face. _'Need to make the edges of this thing rounder, too,' _He thinks.

After some struggling Mystique rolls of, just in time for Havok to pin Cyclops down with a concussive blast, the force of the attack causing his ribs to hurt. After what feels like forever the attack stops, and Mystique places her foot on Cyclops injured ribs, smirking while casually aiming one of her guns at his face. "Hm, you were a lot tougher last time we fought."

Cyclops just lets out a chuckle, but he immediately regrets it. "Last time we fought you didn't have a three-on-one against me, maybe we can fix that."

Mystique tilts her head in confusion.

"Scott Summers!" Cyclops shouts out.

Havok feels his heart stop once Cyclops screams his brother's name. "W-what? Why the hell did you say that name?" He demands.

Mystique turns to him with a glare. "Don't listen to him, Havok, he's just trying to get into your head."  
Havok glares back. "I'll be the judge of that," He looks down at Cyclops. "Why'd you say that name?"

"Because I'm him."

Havok feels like the world, well, asteroid, was pulled out from under him. He shakes his head to clear his mind before glaring at Cyclops. "If that's supposed to be a joke, it isn't funny," The circle on his chest begins to glow. "Explain, shit stain."

"Havok, he's clearly just trying to buy time, let's just deal with him now," Mystique interjects. "Wouldn't you agree, Destiny?"

The precog is silent for a moment. "Let him speak."

Mystique glares at her, shocked at her response.

Cyclops uses that moment to continue. "Your name is Alexander Summers, your older brother's name is Scott Summers, your father was Major Christopher Summers of the U.S. Air Force, and your mother's name was Katherine Ann Summers."

"That could be in your records, anyone could learn that," Mystique says, trying to plant seeds of doubt.

Havok tilts his head, taking Mystique's words into consideration. "She's right," He mutters. Cyclops feels some fear spike as Mystique grins. "What's something only Scott would know?"

Cyclops goes through his memories, trying to find something that could convince Havok, but nothing comes to mind. Eventually he comes across a memory, one he doesn't like but will definitely convince his brother. "Ten years ago, I was nine, you were six, we were coming back from our vacation in Hawaii, Dad would make jokes calling it a Summers Vacation, in his private plane during a storm."

Havok's glare is quickly replaced with shock as he takes a step back. Mystique attempts to punch Cyclops in the face, but Destiny grabs her arm, stopping her. "The hell are you doing?" Mystique demands.

Even through her golden mask Mystique can tell that Destiny is giving her a knowing look.

"The jet suddenly hit something, causing it to begin crashing, and there was only one parachute. Mom gave it to me and attached you to the front of it, one more kiss goodbye and she pushed us out just before an explosion destroyed the jet," Cyclops continues.

"The debris damaged the parachute," Havok whispers. "Before we hit the ground a red beam came from out of nowhere, slowing us down but not by enough. That was you. As we got closer my chest began to burn, a blue beam then came from me, slowing us down more but it was too late, we hit the ground hard."

Cyclops nods from his place on the floor. "After that I woke up a month later in a hospital, the doctors told me you were in an orphanage. The next day I destroyed the roof of the hospital and fell into a one-year coma. That was fun."

"S-Scott?" Havok whispers.

Cyclops lets out another chuckle, which he regrets again. "Hey, Alex. You've gotten big."

Havok feels a multitude of emotions, joy, relief, satisfaction. But he also feels negative emotions. Anger at the Brotherhood for manipulating him and Lorna, but mostly disgust at his part in a genocidal plan to kill mankind. Nodding in determination Havok glares at Mystique and Destiny, and before they can react, he hits them with a blast, sending them flying out of the room.

He then reaches down and helps Cyclops up. Once standing the two brothers hug. Havok begins to tear up and plants his face into Cyclops' shoulder. "T-ten years, man, a whole decade of hell! Goddammit!"

Cyclops tightens his grip, worried that letting go would cause him to lose Alex again. "I know, I know," He takes a deep breath before stepping back, keeping a hand on Havok's shoulder. Havok can also see a tear sliding down Cyclops' face, alongside a massive smile. "We can reunite later, we've got some terrorists to beat, Alex."

Havok gains an almost exact copy of Cyclops' smile. "You got that right, Scott."

The door opens, and in marches an indifferent Destiny and a furious Mystique. "You're going to regret that, kid," The latter threatens.

Havok scoffs as he rolls his shoulder, wincing slightly at the pain that comes from that action. "Yeah, I doubt that. If anything, I regret joining you guys," He brings two fingers close together. "I was this close to helping you commit genocide."

Mystique spits to the side before she and Destiny aim their guns at the reunited Summers brothers. "You really think one change of heart will wipe out months of planning? You were with us since we brought you in one hundred percent."

Cyclops and Havok build up their energy. The younger steps forward, his fist raised. "Please, I only joined you guys 'cause you promised to help me find my brother, lo and behold you knew who he was the entire time and said nothing," He then smirks as something else comes to mind. "Makes me wonder what Lorna'll say once I tell her."

The female mutants put their fingers on the triggers of their guns. Mystique's eyes narrow. "We can't have that."

Cyclops tilts his head towards Havok. "Why will Magneto's daughter listen to you instead of him?"

"We've known each other since we were kids, been dating for a year too, Magneto barely came into her life a couple of months ago. She only joined 'cause I wanted to, once I leave, she does too," Havok answers.

Three gunshots ring out. The two brothers react and fire their powers at the two mutants. The bullets are hurled back as Mystique and Destiny barely dodge from the dual beams. Destiny and Mystique then run circles around the two, firing their guns the entire time. The powers of the brothers proves to be too much as they stand back-to-back and cover each other's backs, their powers keeping the bullets away.

Cyclops then aims low, hitting Mystique's legs out from under her. While Destiny is distracted Havok hits her in the center with a powerful blast, sending her flying back. She then lands on her injured leg, blood spurting out and crying in pain. Mystique growls before shifting into Shadowcat, her smaller size helping her dodge the attacks.

Reaching Cyclops, she jumps up and tucks her feet in, she then quickly lashes out and slams both feet into his chest, sending Cyclops stumbling over his brother. She then shifts into Wolverine and unsheathes bone claws, stabbing down attempting to skewer the two. They roll out of the way just as her claws break against the floor.

As she recoils in pain the two hit her with a combined blast, breaking some ribs and sending her through a wall, breaking her spine as well.

The two take deep breaths, Cyclops flinches as he reaches for his ribs, gingerly feeling at them. "Yeah, you broke some of my ribs."

Havok helps him stay standing as he chuckles guiltily. "Sorry about that."

Cyclops waves his apology off. "It's no big deal, they'll heal in due time, no permanent damage done. Besides, some broken ribs are worth it if I get my little bro back."

Before Havok can reply a gunshot rings out from behind them. Havok feels pain explode from his side as he falls over, blood pooling within his suit. Everything seems to slow down as Cyclops watches his brother fall over due to the bullet wound in his back. Turning around he sees Destiny with her gun raised, the barrel smoking.

Cyclops' face contorts into a deep frown before he roars in rage, hitting Destiny with an extremely powerful optic blast, sending her flying through the wall behind her, breaking most of her ribs and causing damage to her spine.

He hears another roar of rage as Mystique comes running at him, claws out ready to slice him up. But Cyclops doesn't humor her, instead he just hits her with a more powerful blast, knowing her shapeshifting gives her a healing factor that'll let her survive the impact.

Mystique is blasted through multiple walls before she slams her head on the ground, knocking her out.

Cyclops keeps an eye on her, breathing heavily. Once he's sure she won't move he hurries down and carefully lifts the top half of Havok's suit, his brother groans in protest. "I know, I know. Sorry, Alex, but I have to do this, I just got you back, I can't lose you now."

From his utility belt Cyclops grabs his medical pouch, from it he pulls out a small bottle of alcohol, some cotton balls, some tweezers, and some bandages. With one hand Cyclops applies pressure on the wound, the other grabs the tweezers and gets ready to pull out the bullet. "Again, sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just fucking do it," Havok mutters.

Despite himself Cyclops lets out a weak chuckle as he puts the tweezers into Havok's wound, ignoring his groans of pain. After some searching Cyclops finds the bullet and pulls it out, he then puts some of the alcohol on the cotton balls and cleans around the wound, causing more pain for Havok. Finally, Cyclops bandages up the wound and puts away his medical supplies.

"And Bobby always asked why I had this," He mutters victoriously. He reaches down and carefully puts Havok's arm over his shoulder. "C'mon, lets get you to a safe place."

Havok weakly shakes his head. "No, we gotta go to the hangar."

"What? Alex, no-"

"Scott," Havok interrupts. "Lorna's there, and she can really change the tide of the fight if she's on our side. _When_ she's on our side."

"What makes you so sure she'll help us?" Cyclops questions.

"Like I said, she only joined the Brotherhood because I did, while she may want to know more about Magneto and her siblings, she would reassure that I was the main reason she was here. If she knows I joined you guys then she'll join as well," Havok explains. "And besides, once she finds out Destiny shot me, she'll definitely want some revenge."

Cyclops grimaces as the two walk past Destiny, already on their way to the hangar. "Don't think she'll get the chance."

"Yeah, she might not," Havok agrees. "Now let's go turn the tide of battle!" Havok shouts, his arm above the wound raised up high, finger pointed upward. He immediately grimaces and clutches at his side. "Shouldn't have done that."

Cyclops chuckles, also grimacing due to his injured ribs. "No. You shouldn't have," He then has a fond smile on his face as the two injured brothers limp towards the main battle, using each other as crutches. "Let's go turn the tide of battle."

**Next time: Mirror Match**

* * *

**Havok's identity has been revealed! But c'mon, who didn't see that one coming? Gotta admit, this chapter was a little hard to write at first, but as time went on it got easier and easier, but then I realized something: Polaris is about a year younger than Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and in this universe Magda died when the twins were about seven years old, meaning Polaris would be an affair baby. And my Magneto isn't that kind of guy, he really did love Magda, so in this story the three are full-blooded siblings, I just never considered that until now. Polaris' story will be that during the chaos when Magda was killed and Wanda was almost killed a sympathetic neighbor escaped with a young Lorna, sending the baby to some friends in America named the Danes. Good? Good. **

**On another note, remember that**_** Final Fantasy VII Remake **_**fanfic I was talking about? Already started the first chapter. When I eventually upload it, I'll just upload it randomly. While I do find a schedule helpful in some regards, such as spurring me on to write the chapters, I do find it to mainly be limiting at time, such as writing a lot of the chapter the day of uploading, you see? So, yeah, when it's uploaded, I'll tell you. **

**That's all from me! Please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next Thursday!**


	27. Mirror Match

**Hey y'all, 'tis I, with the next chapter to the Brotherhood Arc, one I'm excited for. Why's that? Well, as you saw in the previous chapter—and the title for this one—it's time for a…MIRROR MATCH! Mimic v. Mimic! With assistance from Shadowcat and Nightcrawler, of course. After this there'll be three more chapters before the end of the arc, then we'll get the Blue and Gold Arc, which will go from 2015 to 2016. It's gonna be a great arc, 'cause that's when the universe will really explode, and we'll finally get the Spider-Man chapter you've all been waiting for since the beginning of the story!**

**On a non-story note, I'm thinking about streaming on Twitch before starting a YouTube channel. I was wondering, what do you guys think I should stream for the first time? I was thinking **_**League of Legends. **_**If you've got recommendations please, tell me in the reviews. **

**That's all from me up here, let's get on with the story!**

* * *

**Mirror Match**

Just as Shadowcat phases away with Nightcrawler in tow, B-Mimic teleports behind me, attempting to get in a surprise hit. That won't work for him. Using my Polaris powers, I quickly lift a metal sheet between us, but I forgot that he has multiple powers instead of one. His fist phases through the sheet and hits me in the back of the head, forcing me to stumble forward.

I hear him chuckle followed by the familiar 'BAMF' sound. He kicks me in the back before teleporting again, punching me in my side.

Annoyed, I let out a roar before throwing my hands out, the room shifting and changing due to my magnetic powers, sharp edges, blunt surfaces and the like forming from every direction. For a moment, it slows him down, and that's all I need. During the opening I send a small metal ball towards his head, getting a hit in that causes him to flip before falling over. While he's on the ground I create metal shackles over his wrists, ankles, and tail, I then step on his back and smirk down at him. "Won't lie, you're good. But not good enough."

Almost immediately his skin returns to normal, now he doesn't look like Nightcrawler. Hm, looks like they've gotten out of range. "Please, "not good enough"? I can copy multiple powers! You can only copy one, I have the advantage," He boasts.

I can kind of see his point, if we were closer to the hangar, I'd definitely have a problem, but we aren't, so I don't. "Yeah, you can use more than one power, cool. _But_ that's only from people in close proximity, whereas I can copy any powers I see once forever, no distance limit whatsoever."

B-Mimic growls as he thrashes, trying to get out but to no avail. It's sad to watch, honestly. I mean, he looks to be about late twenties, early thirties, and he wants _me_, a fourteen-year-old kid dead, talk about sad. As he continues to struggle, I shake my head in disappointment. "Dude, what's up with you? Why do you hate me so much?"

"Because you stole my name!" He shouts.

I sigh in annoyance as I scratch my head. "That's gonna get old," I mutter. "You need to elaborate, I mean, I've never heard of you until today, dude."

He's silent for a moment, for a second, I was hopeful that he thrashed himself asleep. Alas, it was not so. "A year ago, I fought the original five X-Men, I even shouted out my name. But in the end, they threw me in prison, and they seem to have forgotten about me," His anger comes back. "_That_ is why I am angry with you. You take the name, and no one seems to mention me! I mean, I've seen you on the news a few times and they make sure to call you Mimic, whereas I was known as a crazed mutant monster!"

I just stare blankly ahead at his story. Not as tragic as Magneto's and his kids, that's for sure. The same metal ball that got him in this predicament floats above his head, high enough to knock him out. "Whatever man. Have a nice nap."

I drop the metal ball, but instead of hitting his head it hits the ground. He then phases through the shackles and punches me away from him. I slam into Shadowcat just as she phases through the wall. "Hey, Mimic."

"Hey," I reply. "Nightcrawler's safe?"

I help her get up. "Yeah. His injuries aren't too bad, he should be up soon," She then looks at B-Mimic before glaring at me. "Why's he still up?"

I feel a cold sweat drip down the back of my neck as the two of us avoid a kick and a punch from him. "Wanted to see why he was so mad at me," I duck a punch and headbutt his outstretched arm in the elbow. "It's stupid."

Shadowcat just continues to glare at me. "What's stupid is that you didn't take him out when you could."

B-Mimic goes to punch Shadowcat but using my magnetic powers I'm able to shift the floor she's standing on away, causing him to overextend himself. I then raise a pillar that catches him in the chin. He then phases through more metal; I grit my teeth in annoyance. Other than shifting the floor to knock him off balance these magnetism powers aren't the best against him.

He goes for a kick against my chest, but by swapping to my Shadowcat powers I'm able to phase through the hit. While he's confused the actual Shadowcat jumps on his back and punches his head repeatedly, her fists phasing through every now and again.

I then help by punching him in the abdomen and chest, sandwiching him between two angry teenagers. Hey, that's pretty funny, an adult getting jumped by two kids. "Hey, loser! Two fourteen-year-olds are beating your ass up! How's that make you feel?" I shout.

Shadowcat gets in a good double-fist slam on top of his head. "I don't know about you, but if I were him, I'd feel pretty bad."

B-Mimic lets out a shout of annoyance before jumping backwards, his feet kicking me in the chest. He then lands on a metal pillar, keeping Shadowcat between him and it as the hit forces the air out of her lungs. He then turns around and grabs her by the top of the head, and then punches her face, sending her flying back a few feet.

B-Mimic takes some deep calming breaths before turning around to face me. "This is a battle between me and you. No outside interference of any kind."

Is what I think he said. After he punched Kitty in the face, I started seeing everything in red and my hearing became a little fuzzy. Before he can continue with his bullshit speech, I hit him with an optic blast, knocking him off his feet. I keep the barrage going, but he phases and slips by, expecting to hit me from the side, but thanks to Cyclops' powers I have amazing special awareness, so I see his attack coming and quickly whip my head towards him, hitting him pointblank.

I eventually stop, taking some deep breaths to calm down. From the corner of my eye I see Shadowcat getting up, rubbing her head and mumbling who knows what. I quickly hurry to her and help her up. "Hey, you okay?"

She shakes her head lightly before giving me a grateful smile. "I am now. Thanks, Nol."

I feel a similar smile grow on my face, sadly, the moment's ruined. An optic blast slams into my chest, sending me slamming into the wall behind me, barely avoiding some jagged metal. I'm sorry, what the fuck?

Shadowcat flips out of the way, phasing through whatever attacks she can't dodge. Getting off the wall I walk forward to see B-Mimic's eyes glowing red, the optic blasts coming from him.

"Hold up! I thought you said he can only copy the people nearby. Is Cyclops around?" I ask, looking around, hoping to find a clue about our leader's location.

Shadowcat tackles me out of the way just as he fires on my position, barely avoiding the blast. "I think it's you," She says.

"Clarify," I say.

I hit him with an optic blast, causing him to stumble back, but not fall over ultimately. He brings his head back down and fires bursts at us. I meet these attacks with equal force, which creates small concussive explosions throughout the room.

"When you swap to the other powers, he can use you instead of the actual owners of the powers," She clarifies. "Well, that's my theory, at least."

Instead of replying I swap to the powers from Rahne. Immediately, B-Mimic's optic blasts stop, and he then becomes a blond werewolf. A blond werewolf who can turn intangible. Fun.

Shadowcat and I share a quick glance and she gives me a look that I think means. 'Theory solved.'

B-Mimic and I snarl before leaping at each other, but before we collide, he phases through me. Once behind me he lashes out and kicks me in the back. He then phases through me to stand in front of me and punch me down, my back slams into the floor.

I bring my legs in and snap them out, connecting with his legs, causing him to trip over. I then get up and feel a weight on my back. Sniffing the air, I realize it's Shadowcat, going for an out-of-nowhere piggyback ride. "He has both of our powers," She begins explaining. "So, if we work together, we'd have to beat him, right?"

I nod. "Right."

She smiles before kicking my sides, her right arm pointing at B-Mimic as he slowly gets up. "Onwards, Mighty Mimic!" Shadowcat shouts excitedly.

A smile grows on my face. While I'm running towards B-Mimic memories of Kitty and me playing knights and dragons as kids flashes through my mind, my smile growing wider.

B-Mimic phases his left claws through my side, as a way to catch me off guard as his right claws go for my face. I back up so that his left arm is out of my side, and dodging his swipe, allowing for Shadowcat to phase us into a similar state. I then reach forward and swipe at his face, getting a successful hit in, if the blood splashing on the floor is any indication.

He then reacts with a headbutt, slamming his head into mine. B-Mimic follows up with a shoulder charge, thankfully Shadowcat reacts fast enough to phase us through the wall. At least we didn't do it the hard way.

"You need to change it up," She advises.

She phases us through another claw swipe. "Any ideas?" I ask.

B-Mimic goes for a stab to my side, but I grab his arm and punch his side twice before he phases out of it. He then charges towards me, but I dodge out of the way last minute, he slams into the wall behind me face first.

"Telepathic powers could prove problematic, he'd take me out, creating more problems for you," She muses. "Wait, I've got it! Invisible Woman!" Shadowcat whispers. "Your invisibility and my intangibility would give him a hard time finding us, we can use that to our advantage."

"And when he realizes what powers I have?" I ask, ready to swap at a moment's notice.

"Swap. Keep changing your power set to keep him on his toes. But make sure you don't choose any telepathic powers, got it?" Shadowcat says.

I nod. "Got it."

I then start running towards a now recovered B-Mimic. He puts his arms up to block, just before I hit him, I change my powers and turn invisible, much to his confusion.

While invisible I move quickly around B-Mimic, punching him everywhere before he can react. I throw a punch to his right side. She follows up immediately kick his left shoulder. My elbow hits his jaw. Shadowcat would kick him in the gut. The two of us work well together.

Eventually, he catches on and becomes invisible as well, but not for long. I then switch to the powers from Human Torch and hit him with a blast of flame, forcing him to bring his arms up to protect himself.

Shadowcat then jumps off my back and quickly kicks his sides a few times, forcing him to bend down and grasp at his sides. I then go for a backflip kick, but my foot goes through his head, no damage done. B-Mimic then holds his arm out towards Shadowcat, launching some fireballs at her. Shadowcat phases through the attacks but B-Mimic doesn't stop, in fact, it seems like she's his primary target now.

Reacting quickly, I switch to the powers from Marinna, my skin becoming green and my eyes turning pitch black. Using my enhanced strength, I'm able to tackle him into the wall, forcing the air out of him. I hit him once on his left, but my punch to the right misses as he phases through the wall and into the nearby hallway.

Before we chase after him, I turn to Shadowcat. "You okay? Looks like he's going after you now."

She nods before fixing her ponytail. "Yeah, I'm fine," She shakes her hands before looking down the hallway he ran down. "I think he's going after me so you can't go use another power set _and _go intangible."

"Yeah, makes sense," I then turn to her, apprehensive about my next suggestion. Fuck it, may as well say it at least. "Maybe you should wait with Nightcrawler."

Her head slowly turns to me, her eyes boring into me. "What?"

Yup, totally regret this. "I-I mean, just to-"

"Nolan, no," She interrupts. "_We're_ taking him down, not you alone. And besides, it's my plan that you're using right now. C'mon, let's go kick his ass."

Shadowcat marches down the hallway, intent in kicking B-Mimic's ass. Dammit. I run forward and stand in front of her, swapping to her powers just to make sure she doesn't phase through me. "Okay, yeah, _we'll_ take him out, I promise. But can you at least check on Nightcrawler, Kitty? Just make sure he's safe, please."

Her glare lessens as she steps back and crosses her arms. "He's fine, I'm sure of it."

I tilt my head at that. "You sure? I mean, just recently there was that massive shaking that rocked through Asteroid M, he could be hurt."

Shadowcat keeps eye contact with me, but eventually she sighs and averts her eyes down. "You're right," She mutters. "Alright, I'll go check on him, but as soon as that's done, I'm coming back to help you, got it?"

I feel a victorious smirk on my face. Without thinking I lean forward and kiss her on the cheek, my smirk growing at the blush on her face. "Got it."

With one more resolute nod Shadowcat turns around and runs towards wherever Nightcrawler is, phasing through some walls in her way.

I slowly turn around and take another deep breath, looking down the hallway B-Mimic went. I switch to my Quicksilver powers and run down it, finding him, well, quickly. Using my speed, I run around him, creating a tornado that traps him in place, I then rapidly punch and kick him. B-Mimic puts his arms up to protect his face but that just leaves the rest of his body open, which I use to my advantage.

Twenty punches to the kidney, which is definitely going to hurt tomorrow, I would know. Well, I actually took one punch to the kidney from Wolverine during a training session, but that was definitely more than enough. Anyways, I then slam both of my fists into the back of his left knee, causing him to land on it, and then punch his back rapidly.

Eventually he copies the powers and turns around quickly, punching me in the throat. I immediately stop and grab at my neck, choking for air. B-Mimic takes advantage by grabbing me by the back of the head and slamming my face into his knee, probably breaking my nose and making my new scar bleed. Lovely.

After finally recovering I push him back and switch to my Polaris powers. Maybe this time it'll work better if he can't copy Shadowcat's intangibility. Using the wall right next to him I create a metal fist that juts out, hitting him in the side. Another metal fist erupts from right under his foot, knocking him backwards into a metal casket made by yours truly.

He isn't in it for long. The casket explodes outwards, forcing me to bring up my arms to protect my extremely handsome face. B-Mimic then uses his magnetism to hold two pieces of the casket, forming them into disc-sized round blades. He then swipes the two razors at my face, I dodge the first two strikes, but the third gets me under my left eye, going to my scar and stopping there as I back away from him.

Goddammit, two new scars in the span of a few months, something tells me that's going to be more common as my time with the X-Men goes by.

He goes for my chest, thrusting the razors at me, but using my powers I toss them aside before shifting to my Havok powers, hitting him pointblank with a concussive blast before he can react.

B-Mimic flies down the hallway, slamming into a water fountain on the way before falling out of my attack. I then slowly approach, ready to leap away at a moments notice. As I get closer, he leaps up and attacks with a similar blast, just as I expect. I roll towards him, and while low, kick his legs out from under him. I then quickly get up and stomp once on B-Mimic's chest before he fires a blast which sends me flying in the air momentarily before slamming down headfirst, disorienting me.

He slowly gets up and stalks towards me, wiping blood off his lip before stomping on my chest. I think he cracked a rib. He digs his foot in, causing pain to flare up from my chest. Yeah, he cracked a rib alright.

"I'll admit," B-Mimic begins. "You know how to fight, but I'm better. How about this: give up now, and I'll stop mopping the floor with you now. What do you say?"

I just glare up at him.

B-Mimic chuckles before leaning down. "If you don't, I might hurt your friends. Especially the little brunette," He threatens.

My glare intensifies and I totally intend to hit him with another concussive blast from my chest, but I don't need to. Don't know how, what with the smell of brimstone and all, but Nightcrawler and Shadowcat teleport above B-Mimic, her hanging on some bars and him sticking to the ceiling, all without him noticing.

"So," He says, bringing my attention back to him. "What do you say?"

I keep my attention on him, but I can see Nightcrawler's tail slowly coming down. "You wanna know what I say? I say, NOW!"

Nightcrawler's tail wraps around his neck, he then drops down and does a quick backflip, sending B-Mimic down the hallway and slamming into a bench. Oooh, that looked like it hurt. Let's add to that. I charge up a quick blast and hit his prone body, sending him and part of the bench through a door that leads into an open area.

Nightcrawler puts his hands on our shoulders and teleports us into the room. In here we find ourselves on a balcony overlooking what I'd guess to be their training room.

B-Mimic recovers from his tumble and fires up at the balcony, hoping to knock us down. Nightcrawler just teleports us right behind him, there Shadowcat kicks his spine, and once he drops down, I punch his face hard, feeling his nose break under my fist.

B-Mimic then realizes that Nightcrawler and Shadowcat are here. He then gains a fine coat of golden fur and a tail, his eyes become a deep blue before teleporting away from us, sticking on a wall in above us. His tail lashes around as he glares down at us.

One 'BAMF' later and B-Mimic's behind us, hitting me and Nightcrawler with a concussive blast. Shadowcat phases through the attack, but as soon as she becomes tangible again, he hits her with the flat end of the deceptively strong tail, sending her skidding towards me and Nightcrawler.

I turn to Nightcrawler to see him wobble slightly on his feet. "You okay, man?"

He shakes his head and then bounces in place. "Ja, perfectly fine."

I nod before looking at B-Mimic, the four of us circling each other. "Y'know, I sometimes forget you can stick on walls," I comment.

"It's not your fault, I sometimes forget too," Nightcrawler agrees. "I don't use zat a lot," He then pauses and looks up at one of the corners in the room. A rather dark corner. A smirk then grows on his face, his fangs prominent. "I vill teleport up there, hide in ze shadows, can ze two of you survive without me?"

"We've done it before," Shadowcat assures. "When you find your moment make sure it takes him out."

Me and Nightcrawler tilt our heads away as B-Mimic fires a provocation shot at our heads. "Why does he have to take him out," I whine playfully. "He wants to fight for the title, it should be me who beats him."

Shadowcat turns to me with a not-so-serious glare. "You could've taken him down earlier, you know."

At that moment B-Mimic lunges towards us and a whole bunch of things happen at once.

Nightcrawler disappears, Shadowcat drops a fucking smoke bomb from out of nowhere, and he and I shoot at each other with our blasts, creating an explosion that knocks the three of us away from each other.

While still on the ground I turn to a groaning Shadowcat. "Where the hell did you get a smoke bomb?"

"Walked past an armory on our way back to you," She reaches into her utility belt—which she didn't have earlier, how the hell didn't I notice it—and pulls out some more smoke bombs and other miscellaneous tools.

B-Mimic teleports right in front of us. I tense, ready to hit him with one more blast but Shadowcat just pulls out a small canister. She aims it at B-Mimic's face and sprays it, he rears back and clutches at his eyes while screaming out in pain. "Pepper spray," She answers.

"Why would-never mind, let's kick his ass," I say.

The two of us attack with a flurry of carefully aimed punches, all thanks to Wolverine beating the lessons into us. Literally.

At the end of our barrage we hit him with two double-fisted punches aimed at his chest and abdomen. He then leans down and uses his knees as support, and at this moment Nightcrawler teleports in and uses B-Mimic's head as a springboard, slamming the Brotherhood mutant's face into the ground and leaping into more shadows to hide in.

I then swap to my Puck powers and wait for him to get up. And as soon as he does, I strike. Coiling my legs and bringing an arm up for maximum effect as soon as B-Mimic stumbles into a standing position I leap forward, far faster then he can react.

I feel my body connect with his entire upper body, and I feel some of his ribs crack under the pressure of my attack. Grabbing his shoulders, I then flip over and knee him in the back, just as Nightcrawler teleports down and kicks him across the face.

"Close your eyes!" Shadowcat shouts.

Immediately after I hear a flashbang go off and B-Mimic shout in annoyance as he then jumps around, slamming me into the walls and ceiling of the room we are in. I slam into the walls a couple of times, but it doesn't hurt thanks to my nigh invulnerability.

But it does hurt Nightcrawler. As we jump around at high speeds B-Mimic ends up slamming me into his leg, I can hear it break to, along with his scream of pain. Alright, I've had enough. Time to knock his ass out.

This little pinball game of ours ends when he slams face first into the ground, causing it to erupt and change due to the impact. I then switch to my Iceman powers and freeze his body over, but he quickly copies those powers. B-Mimic uses the ice shell to his advantage and makes spikes all along the surface of it. The spikes then shoot outwards, clipping Nightcrawler's arm, causing him to groan in pain to the added injury. Shadowcat barely dodges a few, but somehow one bounces off the floor and stabs into her right shoulder, she cries out in pain and clutches at the wound.

B-Mimic starts laughing. "Would you look at that, your friends are hurt," He looks back at me with an insufferable smirk. "Should've given up when I gave you the chance."

My breathing becomes heavy, the mist of my breath crystallizes the air. I tighten my fists and switch to my Pulse powers; my eyes then glow yellow and B-Mimic begins to shiver. He tries to get out of the prison but to no avail. "W-w-w-what the h-hell did you d-d-do to me?" He shivers.

I lean down, grabbing him by his hair as I raise his head up. "Turned off your powers, asshole."

Gritting my teeth in anger I then bash his face into the ground a couple of times. How many? I don't know, I wasn't keeping count. The small pool of blood stops me from continuing. Raising his head, I see his eyes are closed, and he's moaning in pain before I slam his head down one more time.

Before I can do anything more to him that I'd regret in the future I close my eyes and take some deep breaths. After a moment I open my eyes to see Shadowcat nearby Nightcrawler, nursing her bleeding arm, the shard of bloody ice on the ground a few feet away from me.

I slowly walk over to them and sit next to Shadowcat. "You guys okay?"

Nightcrawler scoffs before grimacing in pain as Shadowcat helps him up. "Please, mein friend, it'd take more zen some ice and a broken leg to defeat the Amazing Nightcrawler!" Even though his answer's excited he looks drowsy, think he might pass out due to the pain soon.

Shadowcat shakes her head with a smile before taking my hand with her uninjured arm. "We're fine, Nolan," Her face then becomes apprehensive as she looks at the currently beaten and bloody B-Mimic. She looks back at me and rubs the top of my hand with her thumb. "Are you?"

"Yeah, why?" I ask.

"Because what you did to him was pretty…" She trails off, unsure what to say.

"Brutal," Nightcrawler finishes.

Shadowcat sighs before reluctantly nodding. "Yeah, that, brutal. You could have just punched him in the face and be done with it, you know? Why the extra hits?"

"B-because he hurt you, both of you. What kind of friend would I be if I just let that slide?" I ask.

Shadowcat opens her mouth to respond, but Nightcrawler beats her to the punch. "Ve can talk about zis later, right now ve need to join ze others, ja?"

She looks at me one more time before nodding. "Yeah. Here, let me help you up," Using her good arm she's able to lift Nightcrawler up, I help on the other side. "Think you can teleport us up there?"

He shakes his head. "Vith a broken leg? Zat may not be the best idea, Kätzchen," Nightcrawler tiredly answers.

I shift to my Nightcrawler powers, my skin is covered by a fine coat of black fur and my eyes have an icy clue glow about them. I look towards the door and teleport towards it, two 'BAMFs' going off.

I then hear some light snoring right next to me. Turning our heads, we see a sleeping Nightcrawler barely standing, even with assistance from a tired mutant (me) and an injured mutant (Kitty).

With small smiles from the both of us we go through the doors to the training room and immediately stop, I don't know about Shadowcat, but I feel my heart skip a beat for a second.

On the other side of the door we find Mystique and Destiny, both in a similar position as ours, Mystique carrying a limp Destiny in her arms. Mystique quickly gets one of her guns out and aims it at us, somehow not dropping Destiny in the process. Her golden-yellow eyes glare at us before they widen once she sees Nightcrawler's injuries.

"What happened to him?" She demands.

I roll my eyes. "Wow, if you care for him why not care for the two of us," I mutter.

The three ladies just glare at me. Well, Mystique and Shadowcat do, I'm not so sure with Destiny, what with her golden mask and all. Definitely would've preferred if I could see her glare.

Mystique sighs deeply before a sarcastic smirk is on her face. "Fine. What happened to you guys?"

"Why do you care?" I ask.

"Nolan!" Shadowcat shouts. I flinch and mutter a sorry as she turns to the two. "If you want to know what happened to him ask your b-list Mimic, he caused all of Nightcrawler's injuries."

Mystique's amused look becomes one of righteous anger after hearing Shadowcat's answer. "Thank you, child. I'll be sure to ask him," She aims her gun at my head, the safety turning off. "_After_ I take you two out."

My instincts have me switch to my Thunderbird powers.

"No," Destiny softly mutters.

Mystique arches an eyebrow and stares at Destiny incredulously. "What do you mean "no"!? They're right here, just asking for us to take them down."

"And if we take them down, so does Kurt, further aggravating his injuries," Destiny counters calmly.

Shadowcat and I share a glance. Did we ever say Kurt's name around them? Maybe back at Germany. Then again, things were so damn crazy then so we wouldn't have even noticed.

Mystique reluctantly turns on the safety of her gun and puts the weapon away. She then walks around us and enters the training room, but before they get any further Destiny speaks up. "Go up a floor, take the first left and the second door on your right is the medical bay, use that to tend to your wounds."

The two then walk further into the room, but before they get far, I hear Destiny whisper to Mystique. "You never answered Nolan's question."

Now _that _stops me in my tracks. I definitely don't remember telling Mystique my name, which would make less sense if Destiny did. But then I remember, precog, she probably knew my name before I was even born. Damn, that's weird to think about.

Mystique grumbles before turning around. "Hey," She shouts to grab our attention. Once we turn around, curious to hear her answer she sighs before shaking her head, muttering. "This is a bad idea," She raises her head and nods towards Nightcrawler. "Take care of my son, alright?"

And with that the doors to the training room close.

Everything's silent as Shadowcat and I stare at the door, in shock at the bombshell Mystique casually dropped on us. Slowly, we turn our gazes to our sleeping teammate, and it all starts to make sense. Although his fur's indigo it still reminds us of her, and his golden-yellow eyes look just like Mystique's. Damn, how the hell didn't we see it before?  
Shadowcat gulps before leaning her head forward to look at me. "Please tell me she was lying."

I slowly shake my head. "I was using my Thunderbird powers, and her heartbeat didn't fluctuate one bit," We then look back at Nightcrawler, seeing him in a new light. Not sure how Shadowcat sees him now, but I feel a new connection with him, what with Mister Sinister being my maternal grandfather and all. "Wonder how he'll react to this."

"Yo! Guys!"

Looking up, we see Iceman coming towards us on an ice slide. Once he gets near, he hops off and stumbles forward, nearly tripping on his face as he does. He struggles to stand up straight, but once he shifts back to normal, he stumbles in place, my quick reaction stopping him from falling flat on his back.

"Thanks," He says. Iceman then finally notices Shadowcat's and Nightcrawler's injuries. He quickly walks over and gingerly places Shadowcat's uninjured arm over his shoulder. "You guys okay?"

He then places his hand over her wound and creates an ice covering over both sides of her wound, doing the same for Nightcrawler. Shadowcat nods her thanks. "Yeah. Well, physically at least, mentally I'm not so sure."

I nod. "I'm in the same boat as you."

Iceman looks between the two of us as we enter the elevator. "Why? What happened?"

Shadowcat and I share a look before she shrugs her bad arm, wincing and hissing in pain. "Go ahead, Nolan."

I look at Nightcrawler, prompting Iceman to do the same. "We found out that, uh, Mystique's kind of his uh…she's his mom."

Iceman's eyes widen comically before he looks up, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Makes sense, now that I think about it. His fur's a similar color to her skin, and he has the same eyes as her. Damn, how didn't I see it?"

I take the first left and enter the second door on the right, the four of us entering the medical bay. We walk over to two empty cots, Iceman and I then go to grab the necessary supplies to help, but before he can do any more Shadowcat puts her hand on his arm. "Hey, Bobby? Think you could help Kurt? I, uh, wanna talk to Nolan. Alone."

Iceman's face flashes with an unknown emotion before he has a sly smirk, lightly elbowing Shadowcat on her good side. "Right, I totally understand," The ice around the wound melts. He then gingerly picks up Nightcrawler and flashes a smile towards me. He then heads towards a cot at the end of the room.

I turn around to see Shadowcat gently smiling as she holds her injured arm up. "Well? It won't wrap itself up, you know."

I let out a quick laugh and walk forward with some cotton balls damp with alcohol. I gently touch around the wound with the cotton balls, stopping once I notice her flinch in slight recoil. "It's fine, Nolan. Besides, not as bad as getting an ice spike through the shoulder," She reassures. Shadowcat's eyes then widen and she softly gasps as she traces just below my now extended scar. "What happened?"

"Oh, uh, when I was using Polaris' powers B-Mimic made some razor discs and ended up cutting me, it'll be fine," I explain. For the next few minutes things are silent in the room, the only noises being Shadowcat's hisses as I clean the wound. Eventually I decide to break the silence. "Why'd you want me to do this? I'm pretty sure Iceman's got more experience than me in this stuff, Shadowcat."

"Kitty," She corrects. "We're not in any immediate danger now, are we, Nolan? Just call me Kitty."

I nod and continue the procedure. "Right. So, why'd you want me to do this, Kitty?"

She looks at me with half-lidded eyes and a smile that makes my insides feel hot. Not like when I use my fire related powers. "I wanted to talk about last night. When I kissed you."

I finish wrapping the bandages around her wound and sit on the cot after she scoots to give me space. "I thought we'd talk about it after this is all over?"

She nods as she tilts her head and plays with her ponytail in an incredibly cute manner. "We could, yeah, but I just wanna do it now, when things have slowed down, you know?"

"I know, trust me, I do. So, what do you want to talk about exactly? How I felt about the kiss?" I ask sarcastically.

"Yes."

Oh. Huh, why didn't I see that one coming?

As my mind goes back to last night, I feel a smile grow on my face, a blush as well. I let out a quick chuckle before turning back to her, a blush on her face as well. "There never was a girl after you. I mean, I've had some crushes, made some attractive female friends, but I never could go any further with them, I always wondered why. Until recently, that is."

"What changed?" She asked, her head resting on her good shoulder.

I could say it, it'd be easy. But what would happen after? I mean, what if that kiss was just nerves kicking in? She could just want to be friends, nothing more.

What the hell are you thinking, Nolan Belmont? Of course, she feels something, just look at her _very_ visible blush, or the way she's looking at you! Fuck it, do what you do best, man, just go for it, goddammit.

"You," I simply answer after a moment of inner turmoil. Her blush intensifies and I feel my smile grow. I slowly reach out and hold her hand, her thumb immediately rubbing the top of my hand. "So, what do you say? After this we go on a date?"

With her other hand she cups the side of my face and pulls me in. "I say yes."

My smile becomes a victorious smirk. The two of us go in for a kiss but are then interrupted by a loud, nearby bang. We jerk back, she winces and grabs at her shoulder.

Iceman runs over to us, barely avoiding a fall by grabbing on to the bottom of Kitty's cot. "The hell was that?"

I slowly get up and listen carefully. Nearby I hear snarls, skin being sliced apart, and what sounds like a…jungle? Using my sense of smell I recognize one of the scents. "It's Logan, he's fighting in a nearby indoor jungle. And if the other scent's any indication I'd say he's fighting Sabretooth right now."

Iceman nods and attempts to ice up, but he can't get any further than his knees. He slumps over and takes deep, gulping breaths. "Dammit, that fight took more out of me than I thought," He takes more deep breaths before turning to me. "Hate to ask, but think you can go help Wolverine?"

I squeeze Kitty's hand lightly before hopping off the cot. "You can count on it. Just make sure these two are safe."

Iceman nods.

"Whoa, no!" Kitty interrupts. "Nol, Wolverine would always talk about how dangerous this guy is, you shouldn't hop in on the fight."

I let out a laugh before switching to my Wolverine powers, my scar setting in and the injuries from my fight with B-Mimic beginning to fade away. "You worry too much. Besides," I pop my claws. "I'll be fine."

She looks like she's going to continue arguing, but then decides against it. "You'd better come back to me."

I give the two a quick salute as I step through the door. "We've got a date, remember? What kind of boyfriend would I be to miss that?"

Iceman's face twitches as Kitty blushes and finally nods.

The door closes and my jovial demeanor becomes serious.

Okay, time to fight a psychopathic mutant with Wolverine's powers. No big deal, right?

* * *

**Psylocke**

Psylocke grits her teeth as she tries to push through Mastermind's impressive mental defense. After a few more pushes of immense effort she causes some more damage, but Mastermind retaliates with even more ferocious hits, causing the deadly mutant to fall towards the wall, using it as support.

'_Either he's extremely powerful or I'm just out of practice,'_ Psylocke thinks to herself. _'No, that second one can't be a thing, and Marvel Girl and Mimic have told me how average Mastermind's telepathic powers are, they were sure I could take him on. So, what's so different now?' _

Psylocke attempts another mental bombardment on Mastermind's defenses, but again she barely makes a dent whereas he tears through yet another wall easily. Psylocke physically recoils and grabs her head, throbbing in pain. She then grits her teeth and exits the mental battle, using her energy almost entirely on defense, while searching for Mastermind and the captive X-Men.

As she walks down the hallway Psylocke would occasionally cry out in pain or flinch as Mastermind continues his assault, but now that she's focusing all of her offense on defense, he has a harder time causing damage.

Psylocke grits her teeth and continues to march forward, ignoring the occasional pain from her cut leg. While she walks down the hallway Psylocke checks another dead zone. "Pyro's room I'd guess," She whispers. Psylocke then reaches out to Marvel Girl mentally. _"I need some help."_

Psylocke can feel Marvel Girl's split attention and her annoyance. _"You'll need to make it quick, kind of in the middle of something that needs all my attention,"_ Marvel Girl replies.

Psylocke understands and goes right into it, flinching due to a quick strike from Mastermind. _"Our telepathic friend's a lot stronger than we planned. And there are telepathic dead zones. Most are the private quarters for the Brotherhood, but one room's different from the others, I just don't know which one."_

Marvel Girl mentally hums. _"That different room must be where the Professor, Forge, Magneto, and Mastermind are. And Mastermind's power boost might be because of some enhancements we don't know about,"_ Marvel Girl is quiet for a moment. _"When I can I'll send you what info I can, until then, stay strong."_

"_Thanks, Marvel Girl,"_ Psylocke replies, closing the link.

As soon as the call ends Psylocke can hear a mental chuckle from Mastermind, a noise that annoys her to no end. _"Are you done with your call? If so, can you try to put up better defenses? I'm bored with running through these ones."_

Psylocke frowns as she checks another dead zone. Surprise, surprise, it's a bedroom. Avalanche's if the posters of swimsuit models, unmade bed, and drum set is any indication. _"If you're running through my defenses why aren't I down now? Maybe I'm stronger than you thought."_

"_Arrogance is one hell of a fatal flaw," _Mastermind growls.

Psylocke scoffs, both physically and mentally. _"Pot, meet kettle, have you met?" _Psylocke looks into another room that more than likely belongs to Mystique. _"The X-Men have told me all about you, and how arrogant you are. Especially Mimic," _She taunts.

Mastermind bristles in anger and stops his assault, giving Psylocke a much-needed rest. _"That child wouldn't know a thing about being a telepath! He was just lucky last time, and that Unus the Untouchable was nothing but a buffoon."_

Psylocke smirks as she continues the dead zone search. Seems like every room down here's the private quarter of a Brotherhood member. Must be up a few floors. _"Think you could take him on now?"_

Mastermind scoffs. _"Please, with The Crown I could defeat _any _telepath."_

Psylocke narrows her eyes as she enters the elevator. _'So, that must be what gives him his power boost, this "Crown". I should tell Marvel Girl,'_ Psylocke thinks. _"Marvel Girl, you there?"_

For a moment all Psylocke hears in the mental landscape is Mastermind's rant about how he'd beat Mimic in a telepathic battle, then he'd prove himself superior over herself, Marvel Girl, Professor X, and any other telepath. Psylocke didn't care.

Psylocke tries again. _"Mar-"_

"_Sorry! Scarlet Witch is _really _strong, it's hard focusing on two things at once. What's up?"_ Marvel Girl answers.

"_I found out why Mastermind's so strong, he's using something called "The Crown". I'd say it's their version of Cerebro," _Psylocke informs.

_"Makes sense. Now I'm beginning to wonder why they didn't just use that to take us out when they could,"_ Marvel Girl brings Thunderbird into the call. _"Thunderbird, Psylocke's trying to find the Professor and Forge, think you can find where they are?"_

_ "Yeah, if Colossus and the others can keep these Multiple Man clones off me, I can probably find them,"_ He answers.

While he searches Marvel Girl leaves the call, but not before making Psylocke the call holder. As Thunderbird continues to search Mastermind notices Psylocke's lack of attention towards him. _"A-are you ignoring me!?" _He shouts indignantly.

Psylocke sighs in annoyance. "Oh my god, he's a literal man child," She mutters. _"Yes, darling, I'm ignoring you. Now, shut up and let me talk to my friends. It won't take long."_

_ "Found them," _Thunderbird announces.

_"See? Didn't take long," _Psylocke says. _"Where are they?"_

_"Floor above you, once you enter the elevator it'll be straight down the hallway. It's also the only room up there, but be careful, Magneto and Mastermind are there also. Wait for backup," _Thunderbird answers.

With a powerful psychic pulse aimed towards the Brotherhood's telepath Psylocke is able to knock him out of her head momentarily. _"Sorry, luv, but no can do," _Thunderbird begins to argue but she interrupts him. _"Don't worry, I only plan on taking out Mastermind and securing a path to the room, nothing more. Thanks, though."_

_ "You're welcome,_" Thunderbird replies. _"Now, I've gotta fight a living avalanche. Good luck,"_ And with that he telepathically disconnects.

Psylocke then puts all her power into defense, which actually holds back Mastermind far better than she expects, but it still causes some head pain every now and again when he strikes. She then enters the elevator and goes up to the top floor of Asteroid M, again hiding in the corner, prepared for an attack as soon as the doors open.

Bullets immediately fly into the elevator. As soon as the bullets stop Psylocke hears reloading actions. She dashes out of the elevator and punches Mastermind in the face, the suddenness of the attack and her speed sending him flying backwards.

As Mastermind slowly gets up, he's stopped by a psionic blade to his neck. "What's the matter?" Psylocke whispers. "I thought your "Crown" was going to help you defeat me."

Mastermind grits his teeth as he attempts to stealthily pull out another clip, but Psylocke sees his subtle movements and stabs the psionic knife into his hand, pinning it down and causing his head to explode in pain.

Another psionic knife is placed lightly on his neck, ready to go in deeper at a moment's notice. "Seriously, what happened to your crown?"

Mastermind growls in annoyance before he brings his head forward and rears it back at an angle, catching the side of Psylocke's face and forcing her to step back in pain. Due to her disorientation the psionic knife disappears, freeing Mastermind's hand and allowing him to quickly reload his gun. He almost drops the clip a few times before eventually getting it in, he then aims the weapon at her.

"I don't need it to beat you," He breaths.

Psylocke looks around, finding ways to get a tactical advantage on him, but the gun he has aimed at her doesn't bode well, if she were to move the wrong way, he could just pull the trigger. Yeah, she'd more than likely be able to avoid the bullet, but it'd still hit her from her disadvantageous position, giving him a leg up on her.

She then smirks. Mastermind has a pride about being a telepath, may as well play with it. "You don't need the gun, either."

Mastermind's eyebrows furrow, and he lowers the gun a little bit, this time aiming at her legs. "What do you mean?"

Psylocke tilts her head and hits Mastermind with a critical stare. "Would a real telepath use a gun to win a fight, or their all-powerful mind?" She then looks at her nails as if she were bored. "I mean, if you wanna shoot me, go ahead. I'll just send out one quick message to everyone that Mastermind, a powerful telepath, would prefer a gun to proving his strength."

Mastermind narrows his eyes and growls, making Psylocke think her plan didn't work. But in fact, it did. Perfectly.

Mastermind turns on the safety before tossing his gun aside. Psylocke then feels his presence in her mind. "Just remember, the gun would have been quicker," He warns.

Psylocke smirks as she stands up, getting ready for the coming mental battle. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," She replies. On the inside her smirk is even larger, her small victory improving her mood. _"Hook, line, and sinker."_

**Next time: Mentality of the Beast**

* * *

**It's been a while since I had a chapter like this, one where the story just writes itself. At first it only had about one thousand words, then the Tuesday of the week this chapter's published I finished the Mimic section and started the Psylocke part of the chapter. **

**But yeah, a lot happened this chapter! Nolan has beat B-Mimic, they have now learned about Nightcrawler's relation with Mystique, and the romance between Kitty and Nolan has officially begun! It's going to be a rollercoaster from here on out. **

**There's something I'd like to point out, also: so, I've made a couple of subplots that you can see in this chapter, hell, this arc, and they'll all be resolved throughout the story at different points, but there's one thing I want to talk about, Nolan's powers. I won't say much, 'cause spoilers, y'know? But I will say this, his mimicry powers are special, you'll see in the future. **

**That's all from me! Please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next Thursday!**


	28. Mentality of the Beast

**Here we are with the next chapter, the Mentality of the Beast! So, as seen in the last chapter, Psylocke and Wolverine will be the main focuses of this chapter, after which we'll go back to the hangar one more time before the final battle with Magneto! It won't be nineteen on one, as you've most likely noticed, throughout the arc each member of the X-Men's been injured, but a certain three will make it to the end. Mimic, most obviously, Wolverine, 'cause, healing factor, y'know, and a third member of the team that I'm excited to include. **

**One quick note: My DC story **_**The Vitruvian Man**_** has finished its second arc! It'll be on hiatus for a little bit, so you can read the six chapters right now and catch up quickly, each one's about 10,000 words. You can find it in the Justice League section under comics or find it through my profile. **

**Well, that's all from me up here, on with the story!**

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**Mentality of the Beast**

I continue down the hallway, following the sounds of intense battle and beast-like snarling. Thankfully, the room isn't too far. After turning the corner and three doors to my right I see a room made to look like a jungle, and in the center of the room I find Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting tooth and nail, literally.

Wolverine ducks under a swipe from Sabretooth and manages to get a hit in on his opponent's throat, splattering blood all over the floor. Damn, these guys are really going at it.

Wait a minute. I lean forward on the railing and look at their eyes, they're bloodshot. And there's some foam coming from their mouths. Shit, I know exactly what this means.

After Marvel Girl and I came back from getting Cyclops' motorcycle Wolverine took me aside to talk about the feral state he goes into every now and again. It usually happens when someone with a healing factor is placed under intense stress, either mental or physical. Mostly physical. When under it he becomes stronger, faster, and his healing factor goes into overdrive, but he loses mental control, going for anyone he sees, be they friend or foe. Since I have these same powers, he wanted to warn me as soon as possible, all to avoid making a choice I'd regret for the rest of my life, something I'm sure happened to him, but if he remembers, who knows.

I could go down, help him fight Sabretooth, but chances are instead of a two versus one it'll be a free-for-all between the three of us, and I'll eventually be put in the feral state if I take enough hits, which wouldn't help our situation at all. And if Sabretooth's claws are any indication, he now has adamantium—I pop my claws out—yeah, I'd be severely outgunned.

Sabretooth sticks the claws of his right hand into Wolverine's face, stabbing into both of his cheeks, lifts him up, and then slams him down hard on a rock that shatters under his weight.

What the hell can I do? Dammit, I can't go down there, they'd kick my ass before I even knew what was going on. I could try to shut them down with telepathy but that might not work, in the feral state their minds are much harder to make sense of, and while I have power and have been trained for a year I'm still not as skilled as Marvel Girl or Professor X. That's the problem with having multiple powers, having to train them all sucks hard, telepathy being one of the more difficult ones.

I take a deep breath and switch to my Marvel Girl powers. Fuck it, may as well try.

Using my telekinesis, I force the two apart into opposite sides of the room, pinning them to the walls.

They both thrash around as much as they can, trying to break free so they can continue to gut each other. I ain't having that. I then activate my telepathy and enter Wolverine's head. Immediately I recoil back, not at all ready for the onslaught of sound, smells, and memories that hit me like a truck.

Planting my feet and gritting my teeth I try again, this time ready for whatever comes at me.

I try again, and this time, I have a better understanding of the sensory overload. I see people impaled on his claws from Wolverine's perspective. I hear their final breaths. And I smell the blood form the wound. Some are quick flashes, people that don't matter to him, I'd guess, but one stays for a few seconds, one I study for a moment.

It's a redheaded girl, one who looks _a lot_ like Jean, it's almost uncanny how similar they are, I'd guess she's her ancestor considering the old styled clothing she's wearing. This girl stares wide-eyed at Logan as blood begins to pool from her mouth, trickling down her chin, but she smiles and reaches out, caressing his cheek. Her mouth moves, but I can't hear anything. Eventually, the memory goes away, and I go back to trying to get Wolverine out of his feral state.

As I put his mind back together, I see more flashes, Wolverine with Alpha Flight, him fighting the Hulk and a giant white furred creature, and his first meeting with the Professor. I then go through many of his other memories before reaching this point.

With some careful mental movements, I feel his mind put itself back together. In the physical world, Wolverine slowly stops thrashing, taking deep breaths to calm himself down before looking around, first looking at Sabretooth's still thrashing form and then up to me. "Let me down, Shifty, I'm all in here."

I slowly lower him as I float down, standing next to Wolverine as the two of us look at a slowly tiring Sabretooth. I turn to look at Wolverine's mask less face. "What do you want me to do with him?" I ask.

"Can you knock him out?" Wolverine asks.

I try, but the sensory overload from Sabretooth is far more intense than what's in Wolverine's mind, the few images I see are far more gruesome than what was in Wolverine's head. I'm immediately pushed out of his head. I stumble back and rest my head in my hands. "No. His mind's too jumbled, can't even tell what's a memory and what's imagination for him right now."

Wolverine growls as he scratches his cheek. "Alright. Get ready, when I say so, I want you to throw him into the trees. Make sure you use powers suited for destruction; we'll be able to tire him out faster that way."

"That's how we'll beat him? But isn't his healing factor working on overdrive right now?" I ask. I slowly begin to lift Sabretooth away from the wall and into the air.

"Yeah, but that's also taking away his energy, when a healing factor is overworked the body has to shut down, it uses up energy to heal, after all" he answers.

I nod. "Yeah, makes sense. Okay, ready when you are."

Wolverine pops his claws and bends his knees, ready to leap at a moment's notice. I turn around, my right arm back as if I were holding a javelin, which, in a sense, I am. Like me and Colossus earlier, I hold Sabretooth in a bullet-like form. "NOW!" Wolverine shouts.

Throwing my arm forward Sabretooth's shouting form flies face first into the trees of the indoor jungle, his voice gets more and more faint as he flies farther and farther away.

Almost instantaneously Wolverine shoots forward into the jungle. Quickly, I switch to my Black Tom Cassidy powers, I mean, there's trees around, these powers are a no brainer, right?

I reach out to one of the trees and rip off a piece, my other hand glows with bio-organic thermokinetic energy. I also listen carefully, and can feel the jungle in its entirety, including Sabretooth's location. He's running towards us, leaping through the trees and shit.

"He's in the trees. Coming fast," I announce.

I lift my arm and charge up the energy, and as soon as he enters my range, I fire at the branch he's leaping towards, destroying it and sending him flying back.

"Keep him pinned!" Wolverine shouts as he runs forward.

"Got it!" I shout.

Reaching out, I feel the lifeforce of the trees around Sabretooth and supercharge them, the roots reach up and wrap around Sabretooth, keeping him pinned. It doesn't last long though; he slashes through the wood. Before he can fully escape, Wolverine leaps over and stabs his claws through his arm, pinning them into Sabretooth's chest. Even if he has adamantium claws keeping his arms pinned, I still wrap some roots around Sabretooth's arms however I can.

Using my powers, I wrap some roots around Sabretooth's face, causing him to thrash around as Wolverine pins his other arm down. I wrap more roots around his legs and make some thorns that explode out, stabbing into his legs.

"Back up!" I shout.

Just as Wolverine does, I unwrap Sabretooth's head and arms use the roots around his legs to slam him into the ground repeatedly. After the fifth slam I swing the root around and then let go, sending him flying face first into the metal wall, a splat of blood follows before he slides down for a second before falling down on the ground, leaving a streak of blood on the wall.

Sabretooth quickly gets up and runs towards us. Wolverine attempts to intercept him, but the larger feral mutant just tosses him aside and heads towards me.

He's heading towards me.

Sabretooth, a mutant known for enjoying murder and gutting his victims is heading towards Mimic.

Who happens to be me.

Shit.

I slam my hands on the ground, roots erupting up and creating a wooden barrier between the two of us. But it doesn't matter, Sabretooth just jumps through with some insane athletic ability that you wouldn't expect from a man his size, and what he can't dodge he slashes through.

With one more leap Sabretooth is right in front of me, his right arm up, ready to swipe at me.

Reacting quickly, I lean out of the way, bringing up some roots that slam into his chest and send him flying right onto Wolverine's claws. My teammate then jumps forward and slams Sabretooth down face first, breaking Sabretooth's nose against a rock.

"Wolvie, move!"

Wolverine rolls away, and as soon as he's out of range I hit Sabretooth with a full powered bio-thermokinetic blast. Which I need a shorter name for. The blast hits him full force and sends him digging across the floor, digging up the dirt as he slides away.

After I stop Wolverine and I stand next to each other, staring at him, waiting for any form of movement. For a while, he's still, but eventually he begins to move slowly and sluggishly.

His right arm is shakily planted into the ground, followed by his left arm. Sabretooth lifts his face from the ground and holy shit it is gross.

The skin of his face is almost all gone, his eyeballs shown in their entirety with some dirt and pebbles seen among his muscles. His suit around his left side is destroyed, the skin a raging red as blood pours out of it profusely.

"Y-y-your d-dead, kid," he manages, the foam around his mouth being wiped away and his eyes slowly becoming white again.

Huh, looks like he's regained his bearings. He's also looking a little worse for wear. I turn to look at Wolverine, who's in a similar situation, although lesser, guess me getting him out of the feral state helped.

I smirk, my hands begin to glow as the roots around us and him begin to act up. "Come on, old man, I can take you."

Sabretooth comes running at us, claws low, ready to swipe up. I clench my fists as the secret roots beneath the dirt explode upward, wrapping around his body and exploding in spikes, stabbing into his body. Wolverine runs forward and jumps on the roots, slashing at Sabretooth's face, blood flying everywhere.

Wolverine leaps back, and once he's clear I send a branch forward in a fist shape, it slams into Sabretooth's face, snapping his head back. The feral mutant slowly brings his head back and glares at me as his face begins to heal, blood still dripping down his chin. "You are so fuckin' dead," he threatens.

I roll my eyes as I aim my fists at him, my tree blasts ready. "Whatever."

With a giant blast Sabretooth is blasted through the wooden constrictions and is slammed into the wall, my attack keeps him pinned. I turn to Wolverine as I intensify the attack. "How the hell do we take him out?"

"Just tire him out," he answers. "His healing factor's already being taxed, anymore damage and he'll be out."

I feel Sabretooth slowly walking forward. Dammit, I can't do anymore, this is taking a lot of my power. "Any other way? It might be awhile until he decides to go nap-nap."

"Suffocate him."

I turn to him in shock, accidentally lessening the attack momentarily, which allows Sabretooth to run forward. I quickly focus again and increase the attack, slowing him down again. "I'm sorry, suffocate him? Is that really the only other way?"

Wolverine nods. "Yeah, healing factor can't exactly make air, y'know?" He walks away from me, circling around Sabretooth. "Keep him pinned, don't hold back. Got it?"

I have some roots under me, ready to lift me in the air at a moment's notice. "Got it."

The second I stop the blast the roots under me erupt upwards, helping me avoid a swipe from Sabretooth that cuts through almost half of it in one go. He then goes for another swipe, but Wolverine tackles him from the side, slamming his head down on a log, I decide to help and manipulate the log to wrap around his eyes.

This is working pretty well, the Black Tom powers, but I feel like I need something stronger, something explosive. Something…flashy.

Oh, oh fuck yes.

I create some wooden throwing knives and wooden bandoliers, placing them in an X formation around my chest and a wooden belt. I place the throwing knives all around the belt and bandoliers, I then create some more smaller bands around my legs and arms, putting more very sharp wooden knives on them.

Alright, let's fucking go.

I lower the roots holding me up and swap to my Gambit powers. I grab two of the knives and supercharge them. "Wolvie!"

Like before, he rolls out of the way just as I toss the supercharged wooden knives. They stab into his left knee and right shoulder and let off the familiar whine and glow before an explosion erupts, sending him flying into a tree, his leg and arm torn to shreds.

Wolverine turns to look at me, an eyebrow arched. "Nicely done. What's up with the bandoliers?"

I shrug as I get another two knives in my hands, supercharging them. "We're in a jungle, may as well look the part," I tap one of the knives on my forehead. "Should've made a headband," wait, I'm in a jungle! Reaching down, I grab some dirt with both index and middle fingers and wipe them across my cheeks, adding to my guerrilla look.

Sabretooth leaps towards me. I barely roll out of the way, but he still manages to nick my leg, cutting through my armor and leaving some scratches along my leg. I get up from behind a rock and throw the knives, one behind the other. He tosses the first one aside, causing it to explode on the ground in front of Wolverine, sending him flying away. The other knife stabs into his forearm and explodes, creating a giant smokescreen.

I then barely notice a golden and brown blur move out of the smokescreen towards my right. I throw a knife there, but it hits nothing, exploding and kicking up dirt. The blur is then behind me, I throw another knife that also hits nothing.

Reacting quickly, I bring up two knives just as Sabretooth tackles me onto the rock, the knives barely keeping his claws away from me. He chuckles as he leans in close, his horrible breath hitting my nose like a Sentinel. "Like I said, you're dead, kid. And I'm gonna enjoy killin' you."

"I don't know about that, Victor."

Sabretooth and I look to see Wolverine standing right next to us, one of my knives in his hand. "Shifty?"

I smirk as I stab the knife in my right hand into Sabretooth's neck. As he recoils away, I quickly touch the knife in Wolverine's hand. He stabs the knife into Sabretooth's side, and I stab my remaining knife into his hand, pinning him to the rock, 'cause I made them wooden knives sharp as fuck.

A massive pink explosion then envelops Sabretooth. Looking up I can see his body flying in the air, a trail of blood following. His body falls into the trees, we hear nothing. "I'm not taking the chance," I walk forward and hold three knives per hand.

After charging them up I throw the six knives towards the location Sabretooth fell, after throwing them I throw more knives. I reach for more knives on my back but grasp at air. Wolverine walks forward and places a hand on my shoulder. "Used 'em all up," he looks at the destroyed section of the indoor jungle. "I think you got him."

Faster than we can react, Sabretooth comes running out and manages to get in a good hit in on me, making deep gashes in my left shoulder as he tears through my armor, the bandoliers also fall over. I roar in both pain in anger as I fall back, grab a knife from my belt and stab it into his armpit, the explosion sends him flying through the air.

"Kid!" Wolverine comes over and helps me up, inspecting my shoulder. "Damn, that looks bad. Okay, stand back, I've got this."

"No," I push off him. I then switch to my Sabretooth powers and feel the wounds close, four new scars across my left shoulder. Nice. He mutters sarcastically. I bring my right hand up to my face and extend my claws, flexing my fingers as I study them. "I want a piece of this. And you aren't stopping me."

Wolverine just shakes his head before standing next to me, his claws out as Sabretooth slowly walks towards us, his arm hanging limply and breathing heavily. "Alright, Shifty. Let's take him down."

Me and Wolverine run full sprint at Sabretooth, who can barely react as my claws cut through his arms, exposing the adamantium infused bones in his forearms, and Wolverine stabs into his chest and side. While in position I sink my claws into his arms and flip over Sabretooth's head, ending up behind him. I then grab two more knives from my belt and stab them into his legs, causing him to stumble into Wolverine's elbow.

With his good arm, Sabretooth punches Wolverine away and reaches back and grabs me by the throat, the claw on his thumb stabbing my throat. He then flips me over and slams me back first onto the ground. Sabretooth continues the attack by stomping on my chest a few times, my ribs cracking, but healing before they can break.

I then stab into his thigh just as his leg slams into my chest, forcing him to stop and reach down at the wound. And while Sabretooth's down Wolverine comes in and tackles him away, stabbing his claws into his rival as they tumble away from me.

I slowly get up and watch the two fight. While Wolverine _does_ have the upper hand, it doesn't seem like Sabretooth's going down any time soon. Sabretooth goes for a kick, but Wolverine grabs his leg and slams his elbow into Sabretooth's knee, breaking it. Hold up, some of my knives are still in his legs. I see the one in his hand is gone. I can use this.

I grab two knives and run towards him, keeping my head low. Sabretooth sees me coming and throws Wolverine at me, I try to dodge but he still slams into me, the two of us land on the floor. "You got a plan?" He asks as he lays on top of me.

I groan as I try to crawl out from under him. "Yeah," I strain out. Damn, Wolverine's heavy. "The blades of my knives are still in his legs. I'm trying to stab his hands."

"After that?" Wolverine asks.

"Secret."

"Aw, now why'd you have to go and say that?" Sabretooth taunts as he stands over us. "Would you wanna be left out of a secret?" Sabretooth leans down towards me, getting in my face. "Now, would ya mind sharing?"

I chance a look down to see one of his hands resting on the knee of the leg he placed on top of Wolverine, adding to the weight. It's out of reach. The other hand's on his hip, also out of range.

"I'd rather not. I mean, I don't know any of your secrets now, do I? How would it be fair if I shared one without an equivalent exchange?" I ask.

Sabretooth hums as he reaches down and grabs me by the neck, somehow bringing me out from under Wolverine. "Alright, I'll play your game," he nods his head towards Wolverine, still pinned down by his leg. "Your friend here's a killer. I mean, yeah, he's killed bastards who deserved it, but there's a lot of innocent blood on his hands," Sabretooth smirks. "Bet ya didn't know that."

"No, I didn't," I reply, looking at Wolverine from the corner of my eye.

"So? What's your secret?" Sabretooth wonders.

"Oh, just that I think you'd make great fertilizer for some trees," I answer, smiling.

Sabretooth arches an eyebrow in confusion. Using that to my advantage I stab the wooden knife into his wrist, forcing him to drop me and step off of Wolverine. I avoid a swipe from his other arm and stab the knife into his other wrist. Good.

Wolverine gets up and cuts at the knife handles, leaving the blades inside his arms. He then slashes upwards, getting Sabretooth in the chest. I run forward and kick Sabretooth's chest, sending him tumbling backwards.

I quickly switch to my Black Tom powers and reach out to the wooden knives in Sabretooth's limbs. With a smirk I snap my fingers, and the knives become trees. I try my best to ignore Sabretooth's roars of pain as his limbs are trapped by four trees, the thought of his healing factor doing little to help me deal with this. After all, we can still feel pain, probably even more acutely with a healing factor.

I guess it's pretty obvious how I feel about all of this, since Wolverine places his hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eyes. "He has a healing factor, he'll live. Think about this as well: he's a murderer, nothing more, there's no reason for you to feel bad about this, Shifty, alright? And, as much as I hate to say it, Sabretooth's a survivor, he'll find a way out of this."

I take a deep breath before looking back into Wolverine's grey-blue eyes. "Alright," I look at Sabretooth one more time. "Can we get out of here?"

Wolverine has a small grin before he nods. "Yeah, let's go."

The two of us exit the jungle, ignoring Sabretooth's curses directed towards me. I've probably made an enemy now. One that, as I've said before, loves to murder and has no moral compass whatsoever. Yay.

As soon as we leave the room, I begin to feel better, I guess not seeing my brutal work _does _make me feel better. A little though, the image still comes back every now and again. Crap, I hope I don't become some psycho in the future. I turn to Wolverine and hold my fist out; he just stares at it. "It's a fist bump," I explain.

"I know what it is. What do you want me to do?" He asks.

I blink before shaking my fist. "Fist bump back, bro."

Wolverine's face drops into a deadpan stare. "Don't push it, Mimic. And besides, don't call me bro."

My smile drops as I watch Wolverine walk away. He looks around, sniffing the air. "What happened to Frosty, Elf, and your Girlfriend?"

I blush at that last one, although not of embarrassment but out of realizing that Kitty _is _my girlfriend now, isn't she? My smile comes back, greater than before, but it then dims when I realize his question.

"Oh, uh, there was another dude calling himself Mimic, he could copy multiple powers at once," I explain. "He copied Iceman's powers and was able to get some good hits in on them."

"Hm. That explains the other two, what about Iceman?" Wolverine asks.

Wolverine and I turn the corner, nearing the door to the med bay. "He used up a lot of energy during an earlier fight. Not sure if he can fight effectively from this point on."

Just before we enter the med bay, I place my hand on Wolverine's shoulder, stopping him from entering. "What?" He asks.

"When, um, when I was getting you out of that feral state, I saw some memories, some people you killed," I begin. Wolverine's face is mostly unreadable, but for a moment I see a flash of surprise. "But one in particular stood out."

"Which one?" He whispers.

My eyes dart around before I look Wolverine in the eyes. "There was a woman, a redhead with green eyes, sound familiar?" I ask.

Wolverine's eyes widen just a little bit. "Jeannie?" He mutters.

I shake my head. "No, not Jean, someone who looked almost exactly like her. Honestly, if it weren't for her old looking clothing, I'd totally think she was Jean, but she wasn't. Maybe her ancestor or something. Look, the thing is, the memory of her lasted a lot longer than the others, and she seemed to know you."

Wolverine's silent. Without saying a thing, he opens the door.

The two of us enter the med bay to find Shadowcat and Nightcrawler talking, a sleeping Iceman nearby. The two get ready to fight once the doors open, but they calm down once they realize its us. Shadowcat runs forward and wraps me in a tight hug. "You're okay," she whispers. "I was worried you'd be hurt."

She then backs up and notices my new scars. She faintly traces them with her fingers. "And you were. What happened?"

"Sabretooth was able to get a good hit in," Wolverine explains. "Don't worry, he'll live. Your boyfriend's a tough one."

Kitty looks down and places her head on my chest, a blush and a smile on her face. Wolverine goes over and sits next to Nightcrawler, the two begin to talk, but he and I make quick eye contact. While they converse, I walk towards some chairs at the other end of the room, bringing Shadowcat with me. The two of us sit down, silent for a while as she holds my hand, inspecting it, tracing her index finger of her other hand around my knuckles. "How'd you beat him?"

The image of Sabretooth pinned by trees growing from his limbs comes back full force. The sound of wood growing and flesh tearing being the only thing I hear. "I beat him. We can leave it at that."

Shadowcat nods, thankfully understanding the meaning behind my words. "Yeah, got it."

I look at Wolverine and Nightcrawler, the two having a conversation about whatever. I turn to Shadowcat. "Did you tell him?"

She shakes her head, also looking at them. "No, not yet. Now's probably the worst time to tell him, we all need to be on the top of our game, you know," she looks at Iceman's sleeping form. "He passed out twenty minutes after you left. Doesn't look like he'll get back up in a while."

I sigh deeply. "Kurt's got a broken leg and his arms wounded, same with your arm. Bobby's mad tired. Who knows how the others are faring?"

Shadowcat scratches the back of her head. "Jubilee got a concussion from Blob, and Shiro's ribs are probably broken after his fight with Juggernaut."

"Goddammit," I mutter.

"Hey, the others are probably doing better, and besides, you and Logan are looking pretty good. And we're beating the Brotherhood worse than they are us, maybe in the end the two of you will only have to fight Magneto," Kitty says, looking on the bright side.

I let out a deep breath as I run my other hand through my black and blond hair. "Yeah, Logan—the guy with a metal skeleton—is the _perfect_ teammate against the Master of Magnetism," I mutter sarcastically.

Kitty rolls her eyes and flicks my cheek. "You need to work on your sarcasm."

I arch an eyebrow in amusement as I look at her. "Really now? And why's that?"

"Because I'm the queen of sarcasm," she says, placing her other hand on her chest and looks up all snooty like.

I let out a chuckle and kiss her hand, lightly laughing at her blushing face. "That you are my lady, that you are."

Before I can continue flirting, I fell Psylocke's presence in my mind, and with the way the others are reacting I'd say they feel her presence as well. _"Guys…'tis I, Psylocke, your favorite British girl in an Asian body with good news."_

"_We could use good news," _Colossus comments.

"_Well, I'm here to provide. I've secured a route to the room where the Professor and Forge are in. Oh, took out Mastermind also, by the way,"_ Psylocke answers, sounding extremely tired.

"_Are you okay? You sound tired,"_ Nightcrawler points out.

"_Oh, I'm…fine, yeah, fine. Thanks for worrying,"_ Psylocke's quiet for a while. _"I'm going to sleep, whoever finds me, don't wake me up, alright?"_

Before we can even reply Psylocke's presence leaves our minds. Shadowcat and I look at each other and nod, heading towards Nightcrawler and Wolverine. "What's next?" She asks.

Wolverine looks at Iceman before turning back to her. "We're getting you guys back to the _Blackbird_, that way your safe. Mimic and I will help clear out the hangar and then whoever's injured will stay on the jet."

"After that?" I ask.

"Me, you, and whoever else can will go to Psylocke's location, you'll send her to the hangar then come back. We'll rescue Chuck and Forge then take down Magneto," Wolverine plans.

I feel Shadowcat squeeze my hand. "Are you sure about that?" She stands her ground, even if Wolverine's glaring at her. I'm impressed, Wolverine's glares can be pretty effective. "I mean, I don't know what Nolan's been through before you guys recruited me, but are you sure he can take him on? I mean, what if the two of you are the last ones able to fight? What then?"

Wolverine's glare lessens. He looks down and lets out a breath, running his hand through his hair. "I see your concern, but we gotta do it, no matter what," he then looks at me. "Hope you're ready, Shifty."

I nod, determination alight. "I am."

"Vait," Nightcrawler interrupts. "Our mission vas to destroy ze engine, Shiro and Jubilee aren't able to do it, and neither are ve. Vhat about zat?"

Wolverine hums, he then nods and looks at me. "Mimic, think you can do it?"

I nod, determined. "Most of the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy is in the hangar. B-Mimic, Sabretooth, Mastermind, Juggernaut, Blob, Mystique, and Destiny are out of it for sure. I can handle it."

"Alright. Let's go to the hangar, can you do anything about these two?" Wolverine says, getting up from his seat and heading towards the door.

"Yeah," I swap to my Multiple Man powers and create some clones, two to hold Iceman and one to help Nightcrawler. "Let's do this."

The clones pick up Iceman, one holding his shoulders and another holding him by his legs. Another clone has Nightcrawler's arm over his shoulder as he helps Nightcrawler. The clones follow us out of the room, towards the elevator. As we walk, I turn to Kitty and squeeze her hand. She looks at me and I smile at her, she smiles back.

Yeah.

I can do this.

* * *

**Psylocke**

Psylocke grunts as Mastermind pushes against her mental defenses, albeit, far weaker than before. That Crown definitely gave him a power boost. Psylocke grits her teeth as she retaliates, forcing Mastermind to grasp his head in pain. Psylocke smirks. "What's wrong, not so strong without your Crown? A shame, really, having to use an outside source to be stronger."

Mastermind growls in annoyance as he attacks again. "I wouldn't sound so sure of yourself, girl, you don't seem to be so strong yourself right now?" He taunts. "Maybe you aren't as strong as you say you are."

Psylocke's smirk drops into a frown. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Psylocke then triples her efforts and Mastermind shouts in pain as he takes steps back, clutching his head as blood flows from his nose. Mastermind growls before looking forward and aims his gun at Psylocke. "Screw this," and with that, he starts to shoot.

Ignoring the flash of pain from her leg, Psylocke dodges Mastermind's shots, all while hitting his mental defenses in their weak spots. _'Well, that didn't last long now, did it?'_ Psylocke thinks. She activates two psionic swords from each arm. _'May as well work with it.'_

Using the almost unnatural grace of her new body, Psylocke deftly avoids the bullets, getting closer to Mastermind as he becomes more frantic, especially once he has to reload. Psylocke takes advantage of the momentary cease of bullets and slashes at Mastermind, he barely avoids the attack, only getting a cut across his chest.

With her other sword she goes for Mastermind's gun arm, but he raises his other arm, sacrificing it instead. He then hits Psylocke with a mental blast, causing her to back up and hold her hand to her head. Upon opening her eyes, she finds herself in an unknown location. "Hm, illusions aren't so effective when you're against another telepath," she dodges and slices the head off of an apparition. "Or when you're aware of the illusion."

Mastermind chuckles as more shadow apparitions attack her, some getting in hits that causes damage to her mental fortitude. When another apparition attempts an attack, she dodges out of the way and cuts its head off as well. She then somersaults and cuts another in half. "Your illusions aren't so good, man."

Mastermind walks out from behind a fake pillar, the shadow apparitions float around him. "Oh, please, you really thought that was my best?" He snaps his fingers. The shadow apparitions all spin around, creating a little tornado before fusing together, becoming a giant shadow samurai. "That was your homework, my dear, and this, well, this is the test," he walks over to a bench and sits down. "I'll have fun watching your mind be torn apart."

Psylocke flips him off with both of her hands before focusing her attention on the Shadow Samurai. The two study each other for a moment, blades raised and feet ready to move at a moment's notice. Psylocke looks at the wall to her right out of the corner of her eye, realizing how useful it would be for jumping around. She can use that to her advantage. After all, she's smaller, should be more maneuverable, then again, the Shadow Samurai isn't a real thing, who knows what it could do with its body.

The Shadow Samurai makes the first move, shooting forward with its katana raised high, ready to swing it down to chop Psylocke in half. She dodges out of the way and attempts to cut off the left leg, instead the psionic blade cuts about half-an-inch into the back of the knee before it is stuck. Instead of trying to pry the psionic blade free Psylocke rolls away, leaving the blade to fade away.

Slowly, the Shadow Samurai gets up, stumbling slightly due to its injured leg, before turning to Psylocke, three shadow shurikens forming in its left hand. The apparition then throws the shurikens, Psylocke dodges most but one manages to get her arm, it doesn't sink in too deep, but she does grit her teeth in pain. Mastermind laughs in delight. "Not so easy now, is it? Maybe you should've studied?"

"Oh, shut the hell up, would you!?" Psylocke shouts.

Psylocke then goes for a psychic attack against Mastermind himself, breaking through part of his defenses immediately due to him not expecting the attack. The Brotherhood's telepath grunts in pain, clutches his head, and bends down as more blood drips out of his nose, staining his pants. The Shadow Samurai is also affected, its form wavering and one of the shadow apparitions separating from it, making the samurai smaller.

Smirking at the opportunity, Psylocke jumps towards the lone apparition, using the Shadow Samurai as a springboard, and cuts it in half, causing the Shadow Samurai to shrink even further and Mastermind to shout in pain.

'_Found your weak point, you bloody bastard,'_ Psylocke thinks.

Psylocke makes some more psionic knives and throws them at the Shadow Samurai, forcing it to take a knee. She then goes for another psychic attack against Mastermind, this time he's prepared, but the attack is still successful, kind of. Another shadow apparition separates from the Shadow Samurai, slightly, it's bottom half still connected to the Shadow Samurai, but it still shrinks even further.

Psylocke flips away, barely avoiding a swing from the Shadow Samurai's katana, but it's easier, thanks to it losing two of its parts. _'There were eight of them, I took down two,'_ Psylocke thinks as she avoids another slash, stabbing the Shadow Samurai in the arm when the chance arises. _'Attacking Mastermind outright will become less and less likely as he now expects the attacks. I'll have to damage his pet enough.'_

She creates smaller psionic knives that she throws at the Shadow Samurai, getting one into its left eye socket, another in its abdomen, and a third in its knee. The illusion stumbles down and attempts to get up, but half its body is locked up due to the psionic knives. Mastermind slowly gets up and raises his gun, half of his body moving stiffly as well.

Psylocke just throws some psionic knives at the hand holding the gun, forcing Mastermind to drop it and grasp at his hand, falling to his knees in pain as the mental attacks from the knives increases. While her back is turned, the Shadow Samurai manages to get up and punches Psylocke in the back of the head, she falls down face first and slams into the ground, she then realizes her nose is bleeding once she slips over to find the Shadow Samurai's blade at her neck.

Mastermind slowly gets up and stumbles towards Psylocke. Once he reaches her, he reloads his pistol and aims his gun at her head. "You," Mastermind says as he breaths heavily. "Are…so…dead."

Mastermind's finger begins to pull the trigger, and the Shadow Samurai raises its blade, prepared to stab it into Psylocke's neck. Instead of being fearful, Psylocke smirks, confusing Mastermind, but not for long. His gun arm aims at his feet just as he pulls the trigger, the bullet going into his foot, the Shadow Samurai shakes violently before the psionic knives in it morph and cover its form, changing it into a Pinkish-purple Samurai, under Psylocke's control.

"How the hell did you do that?" Mastermind demands, bouncing around on his good foot. His eyes then widen once he notices Psylocke standing up, his mental apparition now on her side.

Psylocke chuckles as she tosses a psionic knife around between her hands. She shrugs as she lightly elbows the samurai. "My psionic knives. That's all your getting."

Mastermind growls. He gingerly puts his injured foot down, flinching and recoiling his leg before gritting his teeth and putting his foot down. "How the hell are you in my head?"

Psylocke just taps her head, a psionic katana in her other hand. "I got in a pretty good hit earlier. Surprised you didn't notice. Oh, well, guess you aren't as good a telepath you think you are," she then raises her arm and dramatically points the katana at Mastermind. "Sic 'im."

The Samurai runs forward, its katana shifting into a wakizashi. The Samurai slashes at Mastermind, and due to his lack of physical training and injured foot most of the attacks connect, creating more tears in his jacket and causing more damage to his mental defenses.

With a roar Mastermind attempts to take back the Samurai, thanks to Psylocke's growingly tired state a battle for control begins. The Samurai falls on one knee and shakes wildly, shifting from black and pink-purple constantly.

'_This isn't gonna work,'_ Psylocke thinks, looking for ways to get the upper hand on Mastermind. Eventually, an idea comes to mind. _'Oh, this is definitely gonna work.'_

Instead of trying to take the Samurai over, Psylocke hits it with one final effort. The pink-purple color localizes to the center of the Samurai's chest, completely surrounded by the inky blackness symbolizing Mastermind's mentality.

Mastermind laughs, but his laughter is cut short when he steps forward, his bad foot flares up. The Samurai turns around, it's katana ready to lash out and cut into Psylocke. "Look's like your little moment in the sun is now over. How sad," Mastermind taunts. "Oh, well, looks like you've lost."

Psylocke just smirks again, greatly irritating Mastermind. "What?" He demands. "What's so damn funny? _I've_ beat _you_, I'll shatter your mind, shoot countless bullets into your empty body and then throw it into space! How's that for funny!?"

Psylocke shrugs. "Eh, not really funny," she calmly replies, causing Mastermind to grit his teeth in anger. "You know what is funny? The fact that you think you've already won."

Mastermind tilts his head in confusion. "Explain," he demands.

"Look at your little Samurai," Psylocke says. Mastermind looks and finally notices the pink-purple circle in the center of its chest. "That's my little attack. I'd back up just a wee little bit if I were you."

Almost immediately, the Samurai explodes in a flash of black and pink-purple light. The explosion sends Mastermind flying away, slamming headfirst into the wall, knocking him out. Psylocke slides back thanks to being prepared, but she still slams into the opposite wall rather hard. She feels a bone crack in her left arm, and the air is forced out of her lungs. Her head also slams against the wall, making light explode behind her eyes and her vision begins to morph.

Everything's silent as the illusions fade away. Psylocke smirks in victory before reaching out to the X-Men. _"Guys…'tis I, Psylocke, your favorite British girl in an Asian body with good news."_

Almost immediately Colossus replies. _"We could use good news."_

"_Well, I'm here to provide. I've secured a route to the room where the Professor and Forge are in. Oh, took out Mastermind also, by the way,"_ Psylocke replies, pausing to regain her bearings.

"_Are you okay? You sound tired,"_ Nightcrawler points out.

Psylocke smiles at the concern. _"Oh, I'm…fine, yeah, fine. Thanks for worrying,"_ She then pauses momentarily. _"I'm going to sleep, whoever finds me, don't wake me up, alright?"_

Without waiting for a reply Psylocke closes the psychic call. She lets out a sigh as her eyes begin to close. "Took down a mutant even after he got a power up, secured a route to save two of us, and I'm still alive. I'm badass."

Psylocke takes a deep breath as her eyes become heavy. "And now, this badass needs to sleep."

And with that, Psylocke's eyes close, earning a well-deserved rest.

**Next time: Silver, Scarlet, and Emerald**

* * *

**Shit, I almost lost this chapter. If I had, it probably wouldn't have been posted today, thank you Microsoft for document retrieval! **

**And that's the end of that, two more chapters and this arc is over! By the title of the next chapter you can obviously tell who's gonna be the main characters, in that chapter is when things will begin to hit the climax of this arc. Oh, and in the next arc I'm about to reveal one of the bigger plot points of this story: Nolan's dad's last name. Trust me when I say, it's important. **

**Oh, and the girl in Logan's memories? If you know his history then you know who she is, and she'll become a little more important in the future. **

**On a non-story related note, I finished **_**Final Fantasy VII Remake **_**on Tuesday, and holy shit that ending, actually gives me hope for the fate of a certain character, if you know, you know. **

**That's all from me! Please, leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next Thursday!**


	29. Silver, Scarlet, and Emerald

**Time for the next chapter! Alright, so, this chapter's gonna follow a lot of people, but mainly Magneto's kids, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Polaris, and then we'll hit the end of the Brotherhood Arc! And we'll finally get to see what could have been Nolan's last name, which is an idea I've had in my head since Psylocke's recruitment way back when. Oh, and I just realized that this arc will end at chapter 30, after which I'll go on a little break to properly plan out the next one, talk about perfect.**

**And to answer a review!**

**Age Of X: You'll just have to wait and see. And yeah, when his friends, or more, get hurt Nolan tends to be pretty damn aggressive. Thanks for the kind words about their romance, I wasn't sure if it'd be convincing considering the fact that they are the literal first romantic relationship I have ever written. Thanks for reading and reviewing, I appreciate it!**

**Well, that's all from me up here, on with the story!**

* * *

**Silver, Scarlet, and Emerald**

Thunderbird shouts as he is blasted through the air by Scarlet Witch, slamming into the bulkhead separating them from space. He reaches down and carefully touches his chest, recoiling in pain. Thunderbird brings his fingers up to his face and is rather surprised to see blood. "A lot stronger than I thought," he whispers.

"Watch out, comrade!" Colossus shouts.

Thunderbird barely rolls out of the way, avoiding some metal shards thrown at him by Polaris. Before he can get up a group of Multiple Man clones dogpile him, greatly annoying the Native American X-Man. "How many of you are there?"

"Enough," a Multiple Man replies.

The weight of the clones becomes lighter as Marvel Girl lifts the clones and tosses them at Scarlet Witch, some managing to hit the powerful daughter of Magneto. In response, Scarlet Witch telekinetically grabs them, the clones surrounded by a scarlet red aura, and tosses them back at Marvel Girl.

"Hey! I'd appreciate it if you didn't use my clones as weapons! Thank you!" One of the Multiple Men shouts.

Seeing the opportunity, Storm hits that one with a lightning bolt, knocking him out and causing all of the clones to turn their attention to her. "Oh. It seems I have found the true Multiple Man," she whispers.

"Get her!" A clone shouts.

The clones create a small ramp, all so they can try to get at her, Storm just flies higher, avoiding the clones, although one manages to grab her by the foot. "Got ya!" The clone shouts triumphantly.

Storm just smirks. "Yes, you do."

With that, she raises her hand, her eyes glowing white as lightning travels across her arm. The clone's eyes widen but it's too late. Storm lowers her arm and aims at the clone, hitting it with a lightning bolt that travels through the ramp of Multiple Men, electrocuting them all.

Thunderbird and Colossus walk forward, the former giving her a thumbs up. "Nice one, Storm! That guy was a real pain in the ass."

"Da," Colossus agrees. The three look around. Avalanche is starting to wake up, as is Toad, Pyro's keeping Angel away from him thanks to his flames, Polaris is more than capable of keeping Gambit, Rogue, and Beast busy, and Scarlet Witch and Marvel Girl are stuck in a deadlock, neither gaining the upper hand. "I will assist Angel."

"Seems best," Thunderbird agrees with a nod. "Storm, help Marvel Girl. I'll deal with Avalanche and Toad."

The other two nod and head over to deal with their respective enemies. Avalanche sees Thunderbird coming and causes an earthquake localized to only affect him. The Native American mutant sees this coming and leaps forward, completely bypassing the earthquake and landing just where Avalanche stood a moment ago. Avalanche barely avoids Thunderbird's landing and turns to Toad. "Do something!"

Surprising the both of them, Toad spits some weird goo at Thunderbird. Not taking the chance, the superhuman mutant rolls out of the way, he then turns around to see the ground he was just standing on being dissolved by acid.

'_I'll have to talk to Kurt after this,'_ Thunderbird thinks.

Avalanche stares at the hole before turning to Toad, wide-eyed. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Not a lot of people know what I can do," Toad softly replies. "Look out!" Shooting out his tongue, Toad grabs Avalanche by the waist and pulls him back, barely avoiding a punch by Thunderbird that would have surely knocked Avalanche out.

Thunderbird grabs a sheet of metal and tosses it at Toad's tongue, cutting it badly and forcing the amphibian mutant to recoil in pain as his tongue retreats back into his mouth. "AGH! YOU BATHTARD!"

While Thunderbird is distracted by his teammate, Avalanche slams his palms down, breaking the floor open and causing Thunderbird to fall down the hole. "Can't fly outta this hole like that asshole Mimic, now, can you?"

Avalanche then closes the floor. Toad leaps down and crouches next to him. "Don't be so sure of your victory yet, he's an X-Man, and Magneto told us-"

"Yeah, I know what Magneto told us," Avalanche interrupts. "If you can't see their body, you haven't won the fight."

"So, let's make sure he's-"

Toad is interrupted by Thunderbird jumping through the ground between the two of them, the superhuman mutant grabbing the two by their legs as he jumps by them. While in the air, Thunderbird throws the two down, Toad recovers mid-air and manages to catch Avalanche with his tongue, the two land rather roughly but recover quickly.

Thunderbird attempts a shoulder charge, but Toad spits at him again, this time the goo causes Thunderbird's foot to be stuck to the ground, again, surprising the two. "Avalanche!" Toad shouts. His teammate turns around to see the amphibian mutant pointing at a well-placed jet. "Bring it down on him!"

Avalanche extends his arms outwards and creates another localized earthquake, this one quickly bringing the jet down on Thunderbird just as the Native American mutant escapes from the goo. Seeing the jet dropping towards him, Thunderbird lifts his arms and stops the jet from falling any further, but Avalanche intensifies the earthquake, causing Thunderbird to lose his balance and for the jet to fall on him.

Avalanche turns to Toad. "Think you can hit him with anymore of that acid goo?"

Toad nods his head. "Yeah, but I won't be able to do a lot, after a bit it starts to hurt me, y'know?"

"Yeah, whatever, just get it done," Avalanche orders. "The sooner he's beat the sooner I can beat Belmont."

Toad looks at Avalanche with an arched brow. "What did that guy do to you? Steal your kill in _Halo?_"

Avalanche just glares at Toad.

Toad raises his hands in surrender and leaps on the wing of the jet. "Alright, alright, I'll take him out-WHOA!"

Toad and Avalanche jump back, but some debris manages to get Avalanche in the leg, pinning him down. Due to the sudden shifting Toad spits out the acidic goo, and it manages to fly towards Avalanche. Avalanche raises his arm to protect his face, the acid burning through his armor.

The acid burns through his gauntlet and begins to eat through his skin. Reacting quickly, Avalanche throws the gauntlet off and shakes his arm violently, getting the acid off, but a bad burn is left on his right arm.

The jet is tossed aside, Toad along with it, as Thunderbird marches towards the prone Avalanche, each stomp shaking the floor in a way that unnerves even Avalanche. Thunderbird stops and stands over Avalanche, glaring down at him. "Please stay down, pal, it will make things easier for both of us."

Avalanche just glares. "I don't do surrender "pal"!" Avalanche shouts in defiance.

He lifts his arm and attempts to slam it down, but Thunderbird, faster than what seems possible, lashes out and grabs Avalanche's arm, causing the rebellious mutant to shout in pain as Thunderbird's strong hand squeezes his new burn.

Using his strength, Thunderbird manages to pull Avalanche out from under the debris pining him down, making sure to raise him high enough that even by straining, Avalanche wouldn't be able to touch the floor. "Let go of me!" Avalanche shouts.

From out of nowhere, some more elastic goo slams into Thunderbird's face, blinding the superhuman mutant. Reflexively, he drops Avalanche and grabs at the goo, trying to tear it off, but that just succeeds in getting Thunderbird's hands stuck to his face.

Toad leaps over and helps Avalanche up, but Avalanche pushes him back. "Don't you _ever _spit your acid shit until you're sure. Got. It?" He threatens.

Toad's eyes widen in fear. He gulps and nods his head vigorously. "Y-yeah. Got it!"

Avalanche sneers before turning around, facing the still struggling Thunderbird. With a smirk he slams his foot down and raises his arms, shaking the ground around Thunderbird, causing him to fall over. Avalanche looks up at Polaris. "Hey! Polaris! Think you can help with this asshole!"

Polaris barely raises a metal panel in time, blocking one of Gambit's explosive cards. Using the smoke, Beast leaps up and punches the metal sheet, leaving in a dent that barely stops in front of Polaris' face. "Kinda busy right now!"

Avalanche looks at Toad. "Help her," he orders with a nod.

"I don't think you'd want that."

Jumping, the two turn around to see Thunderbird standing right behind them. The Native American mutant managed to tear off the sticky goo, leaving some marks around his face and tearing off his domino mask in the process.

Before they can react, Thunderbird lifts the two up by their necks, mulling over which one to toss. Making his decision, Thunderbird smashes their heads together, disorienting the two, he then tosses Avalanche back, finding Toad to be the bigger threat at the moment.

Thunderbird tightens his grip, being careful to not snap Toad's neck. "Gotta say," he begins. "Nightcrawler's info on you was almost on point. Never mentioned the goo spitting though."

With the mention of his one-sided rival, Toad's adrenaline spikes, giving him a burst of energy that he uses to his advantage by spitting an acidic glob of goo at Thunderbird's face. Not taking the chance, Thunderbird dodges, dropping Toad as well.

"That showoff doesn't know everything about me!" Toad shouts. He shoots his tongue out and wraps it around Thunderbird's arm, hoping to pull the superhuman mutant towards him. It doesn't work.

Instead, Thunderbird jerks his arm back, bringing Toad flying towards him. Thunderbird raises his arm, clotheslining the amphibian mutant. Thunderbird drops Toad's tongue and stomps on it, ignoring the owner's cries of pain. "Seriously, man, just stand down and know when you're beat. Yeah?"

The ground shakes again, forcing Thunderbird to step off of Toad's tongue. Using one of the wings of a destroyed nearby jet, Avalanche runs up and leaps off it, his fist reared back to punch Thunderbird. He then falls down and punches Thunderbird in the face with his unarmored arm. Avalanche lands on one knee, for a moment he's silent. And then he shouts in pain and grasps at his arm.

Thunderbird just stares at the two with an arched brow. "Did you two really think you could just pull me around and punch me without any armor without being hurt?" Thunderbird shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck. "Shadowcat was right about one thing: you really aren't the smartest guy out there, are you?"

Avalanche growls in anger before slamming his left hand into the ground, shaking not only the ground around them, but in the entire hangar.

"Oi, Mate!" Pyro shouts in the distance. "Cut that shit out!"

Avalanche ignores Pyro and looks around, noticing the battle between Marvel Girl and Scarlet Witch and then finally noticing the damage on Thunderbird's torso. _'If anyone can do that, it's Wanda. Now how do I—got it!'_

"Toad!" Avalanche shouts. "Hit the redhead with some sticky goo!"

Toad immediately follows the order and blinds Marvel Girl. Quickly, Avalanche hits the floor around Thunderbird with an extra powerful earthquake, causing the ground under him to shoot up, launching the Native American mutant towards the two powerful mutants.

"Scarlet! You've got incoming!" Avalanche shouts.

Looking to her right, Scarlet Witch notices Thunderbird flying towards her and nods. She then traps Thunderbird in a sphere and bombards him with a massive amount of energy, causing him to shout in pain as Scarlet Witch's energy causes more and more damage to him.

After calming down, Marvel Girl uses her telekinesis to tear apart the goo, she then sees Scarlet Witch hurting Thunderbird. Glaring, Marvel Girl hits Scarlet Witch with a powerful telekinetic blast, sending the older daughter of Magneto flying back, loosening her grip around Thunderbird.

Marvel Girl telekinetically stops Thunderbird from falling down, instead she slowly lowers the two down. "John! Are you okay?"

Thunderbird tries to get up, but he winces and falls back as his chest basically screams in protest. "I've been better. Toad and Avalanche are still up, by the way."

Marvel Girl nods as she gently lifts Thunderbird safely away. She then floats back up and immediately finds the two mutants, both staring up at her with wide eyes. Without much effort, Marvel Girl knocks the two out with a quick telepathic attack, taking them out of the fight.

Marvel Girl then hastily raises a shield as Scarlet Witch comes in for another attack, this one forcing the omega level mutant back.

"Just," Scarlet Witch begins, hitting Marvel Girl's telekinetic shield with a powerful blast. "Stay," she raises a wing from the jet Avalanche destroyed, throwing it at Marvel Girl, forcing the redhead mutant back. "Down!" Using both hands, Scarlet Witch fires a powerful blast, hoping to get Marvel Girl as well. Instead, Marvel Girl fires her own powerful blast, sending both mutants flying back.

Marvel Girl slams into the wall behind her, coughing up some blood due to the impact. Once on the ground, she slowly gets up, shaking her head once she's standing tall and glares at an equally tired Scarlet Witch.

"Hate to break it to you," Marvel Girl begins, wiping the blood trickling down her nose away. "But that's not happening. You want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet, we can't let that happen."

Scarlet Witch growls as her eyes glow, well, scarlet. The metal floor around her begins to float around her, creating a metallic orbit. Scarlet Witch snarls and aims one of her arms at Marvel Girl, some metal fusing together to become a giant spike. "They deserve it," Scarlet Witch says.

Marvel Girl warps the metal around her as well, creating her own metallic orbit. She then mimics Scarlet Witch's movements, creating a giant metal spike as well. With her other arm she creates a shield. "And what makes you so sure of that?" Marvel Girl asks.

Scarlet Witch throws her spike forward, Marvel Girl does the same, causing both weapons to collide mid-air and for sparks to jump off them. "I've seen them at their worst! And trust me, they can be deplorable," Scarlet Witch answers.

"So, you've seen a few despicable humans," Marvel Girl replies. She brings her shield in front of her as some parts of Scarlet Witch's spike separate and fly towards her. "Doesn't mean they're all the same."

Scarlet Witch bobs and weaves as Marvel Girl sends some shards flying towards her, one managing to nick her arm. "When I was young, my Mother was killed in front of me by the people we called friends," she begins. "They were going to kill me next, thankfully my brother and Father saved me. Every human we've met since then has been nothing but a mutant hating racist who wants nothing but to see our people burn. Why do you fight for them?"

After learning of the fate of her mother, Marvel Girl's defenses are momentarily dropped, which allows for some metal shards to cut into her armor. Thankfully it doesn't go in too deep, but there are some cuts along her arms and body. Lifting some more metal Marvel Girl creates a giant fist. "Like I said, not all humans are bad. My family supports me, they've been there for me since when I first got my powers," she pauses, contemplating whether or not to share this next part, but considering what Scarlet Witch said she may as well. "I gained my powers when I was young, my best friend died right in front of me. I still get nightmares every now and again."

Scarlet Witch pauses, the only sound being the battle going around in the hangar. For a moment Marvel Girl thinks she's gotten through to the powerful mutant, but her hopes are dashed as soon as Scarlet Witch's eyes and fists begin to glow again. Scarlet Witch then floats in the air and tears more metal towards her, creating a multitude of spikes aimed at Marvel Girl.

"Losing a best friend is nothing compared to losing your Mother."

With that the spikes shoot towards Marvel Girl.

Using all of her strength she's barely able to keep them from entering the telekinetic shield she hastily puts up, but the spikes slowly move in. Using more power Marvel Girl's able to push them out of her shield, but her migraine increases in intensity, and her nose bleed becomes more prominent.

From out of nowhere a bolt of lightning hits Scarlet Witch's shield, sending the daughter of Magneto flying away. Looking up, Marvel Girl sees Storm floating in the air, lightning crackling along her arms.

Even with the attack the spikes stay around Marvel Girl, although they sway for a moment, almost falling over. Marvel Girl nods at Storm as she keeps the spikes away from her. "Nice of you to join in. But I have this totally covered."

Storm hums. "Yes, you _absolutely_ have this covered. I guess I don't need to help," she shrugs her shoulders. "I guess I will just sit back and relax."

"I'd say do so, but doesn't look like she's gonna agree," Marvel Girl says, nodding towards an approaching Scarlet Witch, her eyes glowing and energy crackling along her hands.

"No, it doesn't," Storm spares a glance at the spikes surrounding Marvel Girl. "Her multitasking skills are rather impressive, especially for fighting two mutants of our power."

Scarlet Witch shoots hex bolts at Storm, the weather manipulator uses her flying skills to avoid the attacks, barely avoiding the first salvo, but gets hit by a third that knocks her off course.

Using her powers, Storm creates two small tornadoes around her arms and aims them at Scarlet Witch. The daughter of Magneto reflexively shoots more hex bolts at the tornadoes, creating a tornado that sends her flipping back mid-air.

Dropping the temperature, Storm creates some baseball-sized hail within the tornadoes, hitting her with the rather large pieces of ice. Scarlet Witch brings her arms up to protect herself, some managing past her defenses and hitting her in the head. Scarlet Witch's eyes flare red as she flies out of the path of the ice. After escaping, she hits Storm with two powerful hex bolts that hit Storm in the abdomen, sending her flying back and slamming to the floor.

While disoriented, Storm slowly gets up, which Scarlet Witch uses to her advantage by hitting Storm with an attack similar to the one she hit Thunderbird with, this one far less powerful though, what with Thunderbird's superhuman durability.

As Storm screams in pain Marvel Girl continues to struggle against the spikes. _'Dammit, this isn't looking good. And I can't exactly telepathically close her mind, it's taking almost all of my energy to hold these things back,'_ Marvel Girl thinks. Looking around, Marvel Girl finds an opening just big enough for her to escape through. With one powerful push that causes her head to spike in pain, the omega level mutant throws the spikes aside before escaping through the opening, just barely avoiding the spikes all slamming into the floor where she just stood, catching Scarlet Witch's attention.

Out of the corner of her eye Marvel Girl notices that Scarlet Witch has now created double the spikes from the ones embedded in the floor, thankfully these ones are smaller. Half the size, actually. _'But if my train of thought is right then they'll just grow in number exponentially until they're done. Great,'_ Marvel Girl deduces.

Using her increased acrobatic skills, Marvel Girl is able to avoid more spikes, these ones stabbing halfway through one of the walls. Proving her theory, these spikes double in number but half in size again.

"Called it," Marvel Girl mutters.

Running around and jumping over some metal debris Marvel Girl manages to avoid most of the spikes, one managing to slice her arm. _'What can I do to make her stop?'_ Marvel Girl thinks. She could go for the cliché what would your mother think, but would that work? _'Eh, may as well work with it.'_

Marvel Girl slides to a stop and quickly turns around, using her telekinesis to stop the yet again doubled and half-sized spikes. Using a lot of power, Marvel Girl is able to stop the spikes, keeping them between her on the ground and Scarlet Witch in the air. Gritting her teeth, Marvel Girl clenches her fist, crushing the spikes, forming them all into one metal ball roughly the size of a motorcycle. Marvel Girl tosses the ball aside, slamming it into the wall.

Scarlet Witch tilts her head as she lifts the ball from its place in the wall, slowly transforming it back into the multiple spikes. "Why are you talking to me now? In the past you've only ever fought us, barely any conversation to be had. What makes now so different?"

"Because now you're father is planning to kill everyone. In the past he's only ever gone for specific targets, people that only want us dead, but this time he's going for _everyone_. I can't stand by and let that happen," Marvel Girl answers.

"I-it doesn't matter, they all die so we can live. We're next in line on the evolutionary ladder, the Earth will be ours sooner or later. May as well make it now," Scarlet Witch argues.

"Was your mother human?" Marvel Girl asks.

Scarlet Witch stops, the spikes floating. Marvel Girl smirks as she finds the perfect opportunity. "This is totally gonna be a cliché, but I gotta ask: what would your mother say? I mean, I know next to nothing about her, but if you really love her this much, she must have been an amazing person. One who doesn't want her husband and children to commit genocide, am I right?"

Scarlet Witch slowly floats down, the spikes dropping softly to the floor beside her. She looks down at her shaking hand and clenches it into a fist, bringing it to her chest. Scarlet Witch takes some deep breaths and looks up at Marvel Girl. "You'd better not be altering my thoughts," she threatens.

Marvel Girl smiles. "Promise," she looks around to see the others still fighting. "You, uh, wanna help us fight these losers?"

Scarlet Witch narrows her eyes. "Don't push your luck."

The door opens, and from it comes Cyclops, looking a little worse for wear, and Havok. The two leaning on each other. Havok holding a hand over a faint red spot on his side, and Cyclops' breathing being shallow.

"Scott!" Marvel Girl shouts. Hopping on the spikes, she runs towards the two, carefully grabbing Cyclops by his other arm. "What happened!?"

Cyclops just waves off her concern. "I'm fine, Jean, Havok just broke some of my ribs is all."

With that Marvel Girl finally notices the other mutant. Looking around Cyclops' head she glares at him, her eyes glowing as she prepares to knock him out. "What did you do?"

Havok's eyes widen in fear. "Whoa! Hold up! I'm Alex, his brother!"

Marvel Girl's glare stays, but she slowly looks back at Cyclops. He nods. "Yeah, it's Alex," he says with a large smile. He then laughs but quickly cringes as he reaches for his ribs. "I regret that."

"ALEX!"

Looking up the three find Polaris coming at them, multiple metal weapons aimed at Cyclops and Marvel Girl. "What did you do to him?" Polaris asks in a low voice.

"Lorna, they didn't do this!" Havok shouts. He moves his arm and points at the wound from the gunshot. "Mystique shot me."

Polaris blinks in shock. She also puts up a metal barrier that protects her from a kick from Beast, it then wraps around him and drops to the floor, Beast's head hitting the ground and knocking him out.

Polaris slowly floats down. Once she lands, she walks up to Havok and touches around the wound. "Why?"

Havok nods towards Cyclops. "Because I found my brother."

Polaris looks at Cyclops and studies him for a moment. "Scott?"

Cyclops nods. "Uh, yeah, name's Scott Summers. Nice to meet you."

"Polaris! Havok! Move!"

Looking up, the four see a fire ball coming at them, courtesy of Pyro. Problem was, the warning came a little too late, the four wouldn't have enough time to avoid the fire ball. Before it connects, a scarlet red bubble appears over them, protecting them from the attack.

"What the hell!?" Pyro shouts in anger. He barely dodges a punch from Colossus and trips over Angel's unconscious form. Colossus stomps forward and lifts the Australian mutant by the front of his suit, lifting him up to eye level and then headbutting him, knocking Pyro out.

A shout comes from behind them, looking up they see Gambit leaping towards the sisters, his staff raised high, the tip glowing pink. "REMY'S GONNA SAVE DE DAY!"

"Remy's gonna stop," Marvel Girl counters. She aims her arm towards him and telekinetically stops him in the air but regrets it immediately as her head spikes in pain. "Jean's gonna sit down."

Marvel Girl walks over and slides down next to the door, looking around the hangar. "Man, we really messed this place up, didn't we?"

The others look around and some recoil as they realize the amount of damage the two teams actually caused. During the silence the six hear the sound of stomping, looking at the source they find Colossus walking towards them, Storm and Rogue under each of his arms. He stops and stares once he notices Polaris and Scarlet Witch standing among his teammates.

Colossus blinks before walking forward, placing the two down gently. "I will go collect the others," he whispers.

For the next few minutes Colossus walks around the hangar, the others standing around awkwardly, not sure what to say.

Using the silence, Polaris pulls Havok aside, careful not to aggravate his gunshot wound. Once a fair distance away she carefully puts Havok down and sits next to him, taking his hand in her own. "Are you sure about this?"

Havok looks at their intertwined hands, rubbing his thumb along her hand. After a moment of thinking, he nods. "Yeah, I am," he finally answers. "I mean," he points at Cyclops as Marvel Girl looks over his wounds. "There's my fucking brother. My. Brother. I didn't think I'd get to see him ever again. Guess I can thank Magneto for _one _thing, yeah?"

Polaris follows his arm, looking at Cyclops before her eyes trail to her sister. Scarlet Witch notices and gives her sister a smile, something Polaris mirrors. "Yeah, I get it," she rests her head on Havok's shoulder. "I don't remember my Mom, not like Pietro or Wanda, but I know she was…perfect, and I get so damn angry when I think about what happened to her, and that I was taken away. But Father found my skills to be adequate and recruited me, then a few months later we found out that I happened to be the same Lorna they lost. Talk about a coincidence."

"But you didn't want to join," Havok points out. "You only did 'cause I wanted too. I'm sorry."

Polaris smiles. "Don't be, I don't think I'd get to reunite with them otherwise. So, thanks for dragging me along to another one of your misadventures," she sighs dramatically as she drapes her other arm over her head, dropping onto Havok's lap. "Alas, a girl can only have so much fun running from the law. We need to spice things up."

Havok chuckles as he plays with her hair. The fact that her hair changed from brunette to green was always a point of fascination for him. "Well, what if we joined the X-Men?"

Polaris looks at him with an arched brow, prompting him to continue. "I-I mean, yeah, some of them probably won't trust us, but Scott's the leader, so they gotta give us the benefit of the doubt, right?"

Polaris gets up, her hand still connected to Havok's. "Continue."

"And you're tired of running from the law, so what if we became the law?" Havok continues with a smirk.

Polaris quirks an eyebrow and nods. "I see your point," she admits, her next words wipe the smile off of Havok's face. "But I'm pretty sure the X-Men are considered criminals in a lot of places," she then gets up, holding her hand out for Havok to take. "But what the hell. Why not?"

Havok smirks as he takes her hand, getting up with Polaris' help. "What the hell indeed. C'mon, let's go to them."

The two come back to the group, the brothers sharing a nod as Polaris gently places Havok down next to Cyclops. "You guys okay?" The elder Summers brother asks.

Havok and Polaris share a smile. "Yeah, we're fine," Havok replies.

Eventually, Colossus helps Beast sit down next to Marvel Girl. The blue furred mutant looks up at his metallic ally. "Thank you, Piotr, your help is greatly appreciated."

Colossus nods. "Of course," he then looks around. "What happens now? Most of us are incapable of doing anymore, and I think the asteroid is still moving."

"But you can," Gambit says, leaning on his staff for support.

Colossus looks at him, scratching his chin. "Yes, but are you sure I would be the best for fighting Magneto?"

"You're still formidable outside of your metal form, and if you have other teammates who can fight then your chances are better," Polaris replies.

The door opens, and from it walks Mimic, Nightcrawler, Mimic, Iceman, another Mimic, Shadowcat, and Wolverine.

The Mimics, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler stop and stare at the Brotherhood members among their friends, though they don't attack considering how the two sides are sitting and talking instead of fighting each other.

"So, friends?" The Mimic holding Nightcrawler says.

Scarlet Witch rests her cheek in one of her hands. "I wouldn't go that far. Scarlet Witch, we haven't met, have we?"

"Uh, no," the Mimic shakes her hand. "Name's Mimic, this guy's Nightcrawler. And she's Shadowcat."

Shadowcat nods as she sits down next to Storm. "Will she be okay?"

Scarlet Witch waves off her concern. "She'll be fine, I didn't use to much energy on her."

Shadowcat glares at her. She then gets up and walks into Scarlet Witch's personal space, glaring up at the taller girl. "What did you do to her?"

Scarlet Witch sighs and shakes her head. "We were enemies, now we're not, simple as that. Look, I'm going to call my brother and the three of us are gonna stay away from whatever battle you have with Father. Good luck."

Wolverine growls, catching everyone's attention. "Tin Man, you better not be the only one ready to fight."

Colossus sighs deeply. "I am," he then points at the Mimics. "Mimic looks ready to fight, though."

"These aren't the real ones," Wolverine says.

One of the clones holding Iceman brings a hand to his chest, nearly dropping his friend. "Well, I take great offense to that."

"The real Mimic's off to shut down the engines, looks like things are gonna be pretty easy for him if everyone else here's knocked out. Then again," Wolverine looks at Scarlet Witch and Polaris. "Where's your old man?"

"He should be in the throne room, he hardly leaves, scared that Professor X and Forge will find some way to escape if he doesn't keep an eye on them," Polaris answers.

"Yes, but Pietro's still out there. The actual Mimic will have to deal with him," Scarlet Witch adds.

Cyclops nods his head. "He can handle him. Actually, Marvel Girl, think you can connect Polaris and Scarlet Witch with him? If he runs into Quicksilver, we can have them talk to him through Mimic, maybe that'll help."

Wolverine gets up and lowers his cowl. "While you do that me and Colossus are gonna go to Psylocke, may as well get ready," he looks at one of the clones who brought in Iceman. "You come with us. If Psylocke is out of it, you can bring her back here."

The Mimic nods as he walks with the two out of the hangar. "On it."

"Wait!"

Turning around Colossus and Wolverine see Polaris standing behind them, a look of determination on her face. "Let me help you," she begins. "I may not be as powerful as Father, but I can help you."

Colossus looks at Wolverine. The feral mutant studies Polaris for a moment before grunting, turning around and heading towards the door. "Don't slow us down."

Polaris smiles and follows the two to the door, ready to battle Magneto.

"Good luck!" Gambit says.

"Don't need it," Wolverine replies as the door closes.

* * *

**Mimic**

"Alright, this is where we part ways for a bit, see you guys later," I say.

"Good luck, mein friend," Nightcrawler says.

"Stay safe," Shadowcat says, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

"Good luck, boss," my clones say.

"Don't die," three guesses as to who said that. Hint: he's short.

The group exits the elevator and heads towards the hangar, once the doors close, I go for the bottom floor, where the engines are. On the way down I contemplate switching my powers, but I decide against it, who knows what will happen to my clones if I do, don't wanna test that out right now.

I hum as I look up, contemplating the battle so far. Psylocke's taken down Mastermind, but it sounded like she was pretty winded, gotta see what that was about, I'm sure she's a more powerful telepath than him. Sabretooth's…incapacitated. Destiny took some hits, so Mystique's gonna stay back and help her, that's for sure. B-Mimic's out of commission. Blob and Juggernaut won't be problems thanks to Iceman, Sunfire, and Jubilee, but they're out of it too.

Damn, like I said earlier, this isn't looking so hot. For every fight we win, we take hits that take us out of the fight, and with the way things are going it looks like me and Wolverine will be the only ones able to fight Magneto.

Then again, things in the hangar might not be so bad, maybe some of the others are able to fight, that'd be great. Then we can all go at Magneto, overwhelm him with our numbers. Who am I kidding? The hangar's probably worse than all the other fights throughout this place, what with almost everyone being there. Colossus better not be the only one able to fight, if so, I'll hate everything in the universe. Well, everything except Kitty, of course.

And Mom and Dad too. And Grandma. And my friends.

Okay, so I'll hate anything I don't like, but the message still stands.

The elevator doors open, I take a deep breath, bounce around, and rotate my neck. Time to get serious.

As soon as I exit the elevator I'm immediately tackled by a blue and silver blur. "Owww…"

"Sorry, but I can't let you take out the engines, not when we're so close," Quicksilver apologizes.

"Whatever," I mutter. I slowly sit up, the two of us stare at each other for a moment before I stand up straight. "Why so sorry now? Didn't seem apologetic back in Germany. What makes now so different?"

Quicksilver looks around, his eyes landing on a camera. He looks back at me, a hidden message in his eyes.

I nod and create a multitude of clones. A "fight" breaks out between the two of us, during the faux battle I tear off a panel from the wall next to me and toss it towards Quicksilver, aiming it upwards. He sees it coming from a mile away and dodges the metal panel, it then flies up and slams into the camera, destroying it.

"Okay, now that daddy dearest isn't watching, what makes now so different?" I ask again.

Quicksilver looks at me for a moment before sighing deeply, folding his arms. "Because now I'm not so sure my Father's way is the right way."

I hum in interest as I absorb my clones. "You sounded so sure earlier."

"That was before I thought about my Mother, and what her reaction would be about all of this," Quicksilver admits. "I-I think what he's planning is a big mistake."

"Mistake's probably too light of a word to use," I comment. "Okay, if you're seeing reason then maybe he can, right? I mean, yeah, your mother's death is tragic, but if you can move forward then so can he."

Quicksilver isn't so sure. His eyes dart around as he rubs the back of his neck. "I'm not so sure it'll be so easy to persuade him to let go of his crusade. He's lost more than Mother to the humans."

I arch a brow. "What else happened to him?"

"It isn't my place to say," Quicksilver whispers. "I take it you're down here to shut down the engines, yes?"

"Uh, yeah."

Quicksilver nods down the hallway. "Door at the end. This area doesn't have a lot of rooms."

I then feel three presences in my head, Marvel Girl being one but the other two I don't recognize. _"Nolan, how are you?"_ Marvel Girl asks.

"_Oh, you know me, doing great. Quicksilver just told me where the engines are by the way,"_ I reply.

"_Is he still with you?" _A feminine voice asks.

"_Yeah. Sorry, who's this?" _I ask.

"_Scarlet Witch."_

"_I'm Polaris."_

"_Oh, Magneto's other kids are here too. Is that a good thing?"_ I wonder.

"_They aren't gonna fight us, so that's something. Get Quicksilver's attention,"_ Marvel Girl orders.

I look up to see him get ready to walk towards the elevator, to stop him I put a hand on his shoulder. "Hold up, there's a mental conversation I gotta bring you into."

Quicksilver looks at me with an arched brow but nods. "Alright, do it."

I then feel Quicksilver's presence in the mental call. _"Okay, Wanda, Lorna, tell him,"_ Marvel Girl says.

"_Pietro-"_ Scarlet Witch begins.

"_We're leaving the Brotherhood and joining the X-Men. You wanna come?"_ Polaris interrupts. _"Oh, and I'm gonna help some of the X-Men fight Father, so there's that."_

Quicksilver's face becomes deadpan before he lets out a chuckle. Scarlet Witch then chimes in. _"Yes, Lorna and I are leaving the Brotherhood, but she jumped the gun on the whole joining the X-Men thing."_

"_What? C'mon Wanda, the X-Men will be great for you. Don't you agree, Pietro?"_ Polaris says, trying to persuade her siblings.

"_I'm with Wanda on this one, Lorna, I'm not so sure about joining the X-Men," _Quicksilver says. _"Look, now probably isn't the time to talk about this, wouldn't you say so, Mimic?"_

"_Yeah, you're right. I still need to take out that engine and then join the others in beating Magneto,"_ I physically turn to Quicksilver. _"You sure you don't wanna help us with that at least? Same with you, Scarlet Witch."_

The two of them are silent for a moment, probably having some twin conversation even in our mental conversation. Cool. _"Leaving the Brotherhood is asking a lot, fighting our Father is too much. Honestly, I'm not even sure why Lorna's helping you fight him."_

"_Because if anyone's best to counter him, it's me, especially when you consider the X-Men available to fight him," _Polaris reasons.

"_Oh, right. You're not gonna like this, Nolan,"_ Marvel Girl warns.

Quicksilver pats my shoulder and walks opposite the elevator, heading towards the engine room. I follow after him as we continue the conversation. _"What? Why won't I like this?"_ I ask.

"_Piotr and Logan are the only ones able to fight."_

I turn to Quicksilver and grab the front of his suit. _"Please help us fight. You too, SW, your help would be greatly appreciated."_

Quicksilver grabs my wrists and pushes my hands back to me as we reach the door, he inputs a code and it opens, revealing the engines to Asteroid M. _"I know that Logan has a metal skeleton, but what are Piotr's powers?"_ He asks.

"_He can coat himself in organic metal,"_ Scarlet Witch answers.

"_Oh. Well, good luck."_

"_Really? That's all you have to say. "good luck"? Thanks, we'll definitely beat Magneto now,"_ I dryly reply.

"_You've got this, Nolan, don't worry," _Marvel Girl reassures. _"We'll be in the _Blackbird_, if you need any help just yell, alright?"_

"_Yeah. Thanks Jean, see you in a bit,"_ I reply. And with that, the mental conversation is over.

From somewhere—he doesn't have a utility belt—Quicksilver hands me a piece of paper with some writing on it. "You're lucky you ran into me. The codes for control of the engines are only held by my Father, Wanda, Lorna, and I, use this if you wanna shut them down."

I take the paper and nod at him. "Thanks, I appreciate it," he nods and heads towards the door as I walk towards the computer. "You sure you two don't wanna join the X-Men? Polaris seems pretty adamant about it, do you really wanna leave her?"

Quicksilver turns his head to look at me. "We aren't leaving her; I'll be sure to write to her. But yeah, we're sure. And Nolan? Thanks, for helping me see the errors of my ways."

I give him a thumbs up. "No problem, man. And hey, keep in touch."

Quicksilver just nods before disappearing in his trademark blue and silver blur.

Alright, time to shut this engine down.

I head towards the computer and login, honestly, this desktop isn't much. Everything on it pertains to the asteroid and the status. I see things like life support, power, navigation, and etc. but when I click on them its just reports, looks like they can't be controlled from here. It's all cool, came for the engine anyway.

Some clicking and some clacking later and I now have full control to the engines of Asteroid M. After some more navigation I hover the mouse over the "shut down engines?" message. With a dramatic raise of my arm I aim my finger at the left click. "Yes, computer, shut down the engines."

And with that, my hand drops down in a dramatic fashion.

Well, to me it was dramatic, not so sure about outside sources.

Loud beeping then goes off and a voice over the intercom speaks. _"Engine shutdown imminent, please, brace yourselves in three…two…one."_

Thanks to the warning I don't fall over as Asteroid M slows to a stop before suddenly stopping. Curious, I look at the navigation of the computer to find us still over the Indian Ocean. Good, if this thing were to fall it won't hit any major cities.

I feel Marvel Girl's mental presence again. _"Nicely done, Nolan! Now, go with the others, one of your clones is on its way back with Betsy."_

"_Got it,"_ I reply as the mental connection is cut.

As I head towards the door I stop.

There's gotta be a master computer, right? And who else would have access to that computer but Magneto? With it he could totally reactivate the engines, that'd make all the pain the others went through for nothing. Hell, he might even make this computer useless by completely overriding this one, I can't take that chance.

Do I? Fuck it, may as well. I run to the door and wait in the doorway, looking at the engines on the opposite wall. Hoping I don't hurt Psylocke, I swap to my Cyclops powers and blast the engines, destroying them. The resulting explosion sends me flying out of the room, I slam on the ground and skid a few feet. Ow.

My earpiece activates. Hm, was expecting Marvel Girl in my head again. _"Hey, uh, boss?" _One of my clones says. Looks like they don't disappear if I swap powers, good to know. _"What was that?"_

"_That's what I'm wondering," _Wolverine replies.

I slowly get up and dust myself off, swapping to my Wolverine powers to get rid of the soreness and the ringing in my head. "I kinda blew up the engines," I nonchalantly answer. "Hey, how's Jean?"

"_She's unconscious," _Beast answers. _"What do you mean "I kinda blew up the engines"?"_

"I think it's pretty obvious what that means," I reply.

"_But why'd you blow 'em up?"_ Wolverine asks.

"I thought, "hey, what if Magneto has a master computer that lets him reactivate the computers from where he's at. May as well destroy 'em now so we won't be over civilization later." You know?" I answer.

"_Good point,"_ Beast says. _"Okay-"_

"_Hold up,"_ Wolverine interrupts. _"Mint Leaf here just told me you shouldn't have done that kid."_

"Who the hell is Mint Leaf?" I ask.

"_Polaris. Look, apparently even if the engines were off, they were the only things keeping this thing afloat, now that they're destroyed, we're gonna fall into Earth's orbit,"_ Wolverine continues.

I stop in shock just as the elevator doors close. "I'm sorry," I gulp. "Did you say Asteroid M's gonna fall into Earth's orbit?"

"_Yup. We gotta save Chuck and Forge quick, then get the hell outta dodge,"_ Wolverine replies.

"_It doesn't seem like it's falling yet,"_ Cyclops chimes in.

As if that were the signal, we feel the asteroid begin to plummet, everything around me shaking. _"Oh, now it's falling,"_ Cyclops says. _"Mimic, your clone just got here with Psylocke, he's heading back, probably to meet up with you."_

"Got it. Logan, Piotr, I'm on my way. See you guys in a bit," I say.

"_See you soon, comrade," _Colossus replies.

"_Get here quick, Shifty. I can't wait to sink my claws into that bastard," _Wolverine says.

And with that the link goes dead.

For a few floors things are silent. Well, if you ignore the constant shaking and the fact that one's heartbeat is probably going at a thousand miles per second when they realize they're standing on a doomed asteroid. But silent, nonetheless.

The doors open, and in comes my clone. "Hey," he says.

"Hey."

"Going up?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Same."

For a while the two of us are silent as we go up some more floors, keeping our little bit going.

The elevator stops again and the doors open, this time to reveal Mystique holding Destiny, some bandages around the precogs abdomen.

The four of us stare for a while before my clone and I stand to the side, giving them space to come in.

With the four of us in the elevator the silence goes from funny to awkward. Me and my clone would make eye contact, and occasionally we'd make eye contact with Mystique. Well, I think we do, can't tell, what with her golden-yellow eyes that actually do look a lot like Nightcrawlers.

…

Holy shit, how long is this elevator ride?

"Did you tell him?" Mystique suddenly asks.

"Huh, oh. No, not yet, Kitty and I felt like this would be a bad time," I answer.

There's another moment of awkward silence.

"Good point. Even if he can't fight, he'd need all of his focus on this," Mystique says, praising me? Huh, that's a first. "Is there a reason you have a clone here?"

Me and the clone look at each other. I swap to my Multiple Man powers and absorb him.

"Where's the other Mimic?" I ask.

"Does it matter?" Mystique counters.

Before I can reply Destiny's eyes glow blue, which I can somehow notice, even with her full-face mask. Mystique and I watch as the glow intensifies before stopping abruptly. "Ah, I see."

I see a new powerset.

"What, Irene? What did you see?" Mystique asks.

Ignoring her, Destiny looks at me. "Nolan, come with us."

I blink as the elevator doors open, although, no one comes inside. "We don't have time to drag this child along. Let's go, the escape pods should be on this floor," Mystique says as she tries to exit the elevator, but Destiny's arm on the doorway stops her. Mystique sighs deeply before turning around to glare at me. "Come on, kid. Now."

I look at the console. "Uh, rain check? My destination's literally a floor up, can't keep them waiting for long."

"No," Destiny gently argues. "You _must_ come with us, it's extremely important that you do."

"Besides, she's a precog, no matter how much you argue this has already happened. There's no use fighting it," Mystique adds.

I still look at her, wary about the gun on her hip. I swap to my Quicksilver powers as I back up just a little bit.

Mystique just rolls her eyes, I think, and grabs my wrist, pulling me out of the elevator.

"Okay! Damn, I'm coming, no need to be so freaking rough," I mutter as I wrench my hand out of her grasp.

The three of us stop in front of an escape pod. "Put me down on the floor, Raven, get the pod ready please."

Mystique gently lowers Destiny down and opens the door to the pod, but before she enters, she puts her gun in my face and hits me with a glare. "If you do anything to her, you're dead kid. Clear?"

"As a pane of glass," I reply.

Mystique grunts before entering the escape pod, muttering to herself as she gets it ready.

"Come here child," Destiny says, catching my attention. Once I look at her she takes off her mask to reveal a woman around her late forties to early fifties. She has auburn hair and brown eyes that look like they've seen a lot. Which they have, what with her ability to see the future.

"You're friends with Anna Marie, aren't you," at my nod she continues. "Good, good. Ever since she got her powers, she's been hard on herself, even though she doesn't show it in an outwards manner, and she has few friends, only that LeBeau boy. Keep being her friend, alright?"

I look at her with a questioning glance. "That sounds pretty final, what's up with that?"

"The pods ready! Kid, bring Destiny in here then go die or whatever. I don't care," Mystique shouts from the pod.

With a sad smile Destiny slams her hand on the pod, shutting the door and separating Mystique from us. The blue-skinned mutant runs towards the door and slams on it, shouting who knows what at me. Honestly, don't wanna know.

"I have a diary, it's filled with everything I've ever seen in my visions, it's in my room on this asteroid," Destiny begins explaining. "There was one entry of great importance. The date of the death of Irene Adler. My death."

I look at her, both in shock and awe. Shocked 'cause ever since she got her powers she'd know when and how she would die, and she had to live her entire life with that. Awe because she didn't let that define her, or maybe it did? Never know with precogs.

"That's today, isn't it?"

Destiny smiles. "You catch on quick. Do you know why I asked for you to come here?"

"Because I have some big impact on the future of mutants?" I ask.

She nods. "Monumentally big."

Destiny takes a deep breath, although I notice her cringe in pain as she clutches at her abdomen.

"En Sabah Nur will try his best to break you. Don't let him."

I look at Destiny, confused. "What? Who's En Sabah Nur? And why will he try to break me?"

Eventually the pod shoots out of the asteroid, heading towards Earth. Looks like Mystique's safe.

Destiny doesn't answer my question. She lays down, silent. Unmoving.

Carefully, I kneel down next to her and check for her pulse. After a few minutes I get nothing. Dammit.

"Sorry," I whisper to Irene Adler's corpse.

With a deep breath I turn around and enter the elevator, ready to fight Magneto and end this whole ordeal.

**Next time: Plummet**

* * *

**And there's the first death of the story. Rest in peace, Irene Adler, you were pretty interesting to write for your very few appearances. Oh, and that final warning, third time Apocalypse has been referenced. The second time was seen at the end of the Sinister Arc, the first time was when Sinister and Nolan were talking back in chapter four, Sinister mentioned a "him", a guest figured that out. And Destiny's diary will become a plot point later, just not sure if I'll make it a part of a bigger arc or its own arc, we'll see. **

**But yeah, one more chapter and this arc will be over! Man, this feels pretty long, maybe 'cause it's been a while since I've made a plot heavy arc instead of a world building one. Probably. Also, with the next chapter we'll finally get to solve the mystery of Cayde's last name.**

**That's all from me! Please leave a constructive review or any questions you have and remember to stay awesome! See you next Thursday!**


	30. Plummet

**Okay, final chapter to the Brotherhood Arc, let's go. After the battle we'll get a lot of down time, characters recovering, new things being learned, and the setup to the next arc which will be Blue & Gold. It'll be based off the Blue & Gold run; you'll get the team lineups next chapter. Also, Blue & Gold will take place over the longest time period so far, from 2015 to late 2016, so it'll probably be the biggest arc so far, we'll see. **

**I should also say that yeah, after this chapter the story will go on a little hiatus as I work out the next arc and regain my bearings. I mean, constantly writing 8,000-word minimum chapters for every Thursday gets to you. **

**That's all from me up here! On with the story!**

* * *

**Plummet**

I take a deep breath as the elevator doors open, on the other side I find Colossus, Wolverine, and Polaris waiting for me.

"Took you long enough. What held you up?" Wolverine asks as I walk up next to him.

"I ran into Destiny and Mystique."

Wolverine's eyes narrow as he sniffs around me. "And?"

To prove I'm me I swap to my Iceman powers and blast the wall next to me. Wolverine nods and backs off. "And Destiny's dead."

Their eyes widen. Polaris lets out a gasp and covers her mouth with her hands. "Oh, Mystique isn't going to like this one bit."

"Doesn't matter. Destiny sent her escape pod hurtling towards Earth. She looked pretty mad at me," I reply.

"Destiny forced the pod to launch, didn't she?" Wolverine asks. At my nod he continues. "Mystique probably doesn't know that. She probably thinks you sent her away to deal with Destiny. When we get back you gotta be careful, she's gonna hunt your ass down."

I sigh deeply as I turn my body and face the door to Magneto. "I already had enough of that with Sinister," I whisper. "So, we ready?"

Colossus slams his flesh and blood hand into his fist. "Da, I am ready."

Polaris nods as she gulps. "Y-yeah. Yeah, I'm ready."

"We ain't gonna beat him by standing here, are we? Let's go," Wolverine gruffly says.

With that, we walk towards the doors.

Because anything could happen as soon as those doors open, I take the lead, icing up to take any hit Magneto sends our way. Oooh, plan. I stop just before the door and look at Polaris. "I'm gonna go in with a flashy entrance, Wolverine and Colossus are gonna be with me too. I want you to hide, he probably won't expect you to fight with us, so when the moment comes hit him hard."

Polaris nods. "Got it. Let's go."

I look back at the door and get ready to run in. "Three…two…one!"

I run through the door at top speed, creating a small blizzard that covers our entrance. Through the snow I notice some shards of metal flying at us, I create some ice walls that block the shards, protecting Wolverine and Colossus. From the corner of my eye I notice Polaris stealthing by, keeping close to the walls and staying low.

I look forward and swipe my right arm upwards, creating a wave of ice that parts some of the blizzard and flies towards Magneto. I hear the wave shatter just before a barrage of metal shards comes flying in, some crash into my body, leaving faint cracks while others bounce off, one managing to hit Wolverine in the arm.

Thanks to the metal barrage the blizzard dissipates, revealing the room in its entirety.

Looking down, I notice an ornate red and purple carpet that leads to the center of the room, there I see a giant metal throne that reminds me of the Iron Throne. At the other end of the room is a giant window showing a beautiful view of the Earth that is getting closer. All along the walls are blades of many kinds from many places, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and others. Gotta keep an eye on those things. In front of the window is a console, on it is some weird device that looks like it would fit on someone's head. There are some computers along the wall on the right and a bar to our left, some seats around the room as well.

What's most interesting is the section next to the throne. It's a platform, the ground around it missing, separating it from the rest of the room, and on the platform is a metal cage. And guess who's in the cage. That's right, Professor X and Forge. Magneto probably has them in here just so he could gloat if he were to be successful.

The two of them look at us wide-eyed as there's a pause on the combat. Forge looks at Wolverine, me, and then Colossus. "Hey guys! I, uh, I see Piotr's here. Please tell me someone else is coming."

Wolverine growls as he cracks his knuckles, his claws staying inside. "Hate to break it to ya Forge, but it's just the three of us."

"Oh. Great," Forge bemoans.

Magneto chuckles as he floats off of his throne, his arms folded. "Indeed. Great. A child who has yet to see real combat, a rookie, and a man with a metal skeleton. I may not even need to use The Crown."

The Crown? Oh, that thing on the console, I guess.

"Hey! Don't underestimate us! Who knows, we may have a secret weapon or two you don't know about," I shout at him.

Magneto just stares blankly at me. "I highly doubt it."

And with that, combat resumes. He raises his arm, the ground beneath me coming up and wrapping around me, making me look like a metal burrito with an ice cold inside. Magneto lifts me up and uses me as a shield to protect him from bottles thrown by Colossus from his bar. Using that moment, Wolverine somehow appears out of nowhere and jumps on Magneto's back, punching the Master of Magnetism twice before Magneto recovers and tosses him at me, slamming both of us on the ground.

"What a wasted opportunity," Magneto says. "You could have used that moment to take my helmet off, maybe then Mimic could have shut my brain down. Then again, what else would I expect from a savage of your caliber, Wolverine?"

Without saying a word Wolverine rolls away, giving me a clear shot as I hit Magneto with a Siryn scream. He shouts in pain as he flies back, his hands over where his ears would be under his helmet.

During all of that Wolverine looks at Colossus. "Let's try it."

Colossus looks at him surprised. "Are you sure?"

Wolverine nods. "Yeah. C'mon, while Shifty still has him preoccupied."

Colossus just shrugs before transforming into his metal form. He walks towards Wolverine and grabs him by the front and back of his suit. He then lifts Wolverine up and spins around, at the third spin he throws Wolverine at Magneto, a yellow and blue blur flying at the Master of Magnetism.

Just before Wolverine connects, I stop my attack, giving Magneto no time to recover as Wolverine's claws stab into his shoulders.

After taking a moment to get out of his shock, Magneto hits Wolverine with a powerful pulse that sends him flying towards me, again causing us to slide on the floor.

Breathing deeply, Magneto's gaze turns to Colossus. "Ah, so that is your gift. How unlucky for you to be fighting me," he aims his arm out towards Colossus, lifting him up in the air. "Do not worry, child, I do not plan to kill you. Just hurt you."

Colossus groans in pain as we hear his body creak and groan, his arms bending in a way that doesn't seem natural. I quickly get up and hit Magneto with another sonic blast. He expects this one and an electromagnetic shield blocks it. Shit, I gotta do something, and fast.

I swap to my Magneto powers and tear the floor up around me, creating two tendrils that I wrap around my arms. With a deep breath I swap to my Omega Red powers. Immediately I feel my life force slowly draining away, and a need to absorb the life forces of the others. So, I focus that need on Magneto.

With the metal tentacles I toss one at Magneto. Of course, his electromagnetic field catches it, but I fully expected it. As it pulls me in, I whip the other tentacle forward, it stops just in front of Magneto's face.

He finally stops messing with Colossus and looks at me. "What is your plan?"

I smirk. "This."

I activate my life force absorption. Magneto starts to look ill as he drops down, the both of us landing on the floor.

Oh, this, this feels good. Like, really good.

NO! Dammit.

After a few more seconds I quickly switch back to my Magneto powers and take off the tentacles.

This is why I hate that powerset, I pretty much become a vampire. It takes practically all of my willpower to not absorb everyone's life force when using Omega Red's abilities.

The floor below me explodes outwards, and I slam my head up on the roof. Yay, I think I have a concussion. How fun.

For who ever knows how long I lay down on the ground, staring at what I think is up. I can't tell, everything's swimming around. And I think I hear Colossus fighting Magneto, I'm not sure. Slowly getting up, I look to see a flesh and blood Colossus punching at Magneto, but each hit is stopped by a metal sheet Magneto puts up. Wolverine's stuck on the ground as Magneto also keeps him pinned down.

Dammit. Polaris, if you're gonna hit him, now would be a great time.

I switch to my Quicksilver powers and blitz Magneto. A few hits connect, allowing for Wolverine to get up. "God, I hate fighting this asshole," he mutters.

After some more hits Magneto wraps the floor around my legs, getting me stuck. "If you think I can't combat superspeed you are sorely mistaken," Magneto says.

I smirk. "Distraction, asshole."

Two giant, metal arms lift Magneto up and slam him down onto the ground, disorienting the Master of Magnetism. Colossus then shifts back to normal, but before he completes the transformation Magneto fires a powerful pulse that sends the three of us flying away. Colossus slams into the roof and falls down, groaning in pain as he writhes on the floor. There goes our big guns.

Magneto does have a point though, Polaris' powers would definitely be horrible against him outright, and he most definitely has plans against Scarlet Witch's powers. I switch to my Shadowcat powers and phase through the metal traps around my lower half. Looking up I see a multitude of metal spikes aimed at me. Shit.

Keeping my powers activated, the metal spikes go through me. After a few minutes, the spikes all end up in the ground behind me, turning around I see Magneto standing right in front of me. His eyes narrow as he reaches towards me, his arm going through me. Magneto's eyes twitch before he pulls his hand back and rubs it. "Hm…"

Magneto floats back, his eyes still on me. "What's up, asshole?" I question.

Magneto's fist glow with a weird blue-purple energy, some electricity arcing along his fists. "That won't work, dude!" I shout. Magneto ignores me and fires the weird electromagnetic blasts at me. They go through me, as expected, but they leave me feeling weird, almost…weaker. Ah, hell.

Magneto notices my reaction and fires more blasts at me. Using my acrobatic skills, I avoid the blasts, one manages to get my leg, causing it to feel weird, kinda like static. Dammit Polaris! Now would be great.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice the cage is now empty. Oh, nice one Polaris.

I switch to my powers from Vanessa and hit Magneto's beam with a powerful blast of wind that surprisingly keeps it back. Although, even with my feet planted in the floor I'm still pushed back slowly.

During our beam struggle Wolverine comes in from out of nowhere and wraps his arms around Magneto's neck, choking him out and bringing him down to ground level. "Kid! Hit him now!"

I switch to my earth powers and cover my fists in stone. I run forward and hit him in the abdomen with my stone covered fists. He groans in pain as my fists connect with his armor. With each hit the stone breaks away, but it definitely causes damage to him. Good.

I slide back a little and get my fists ready, going in for a double-fisted punch. The hit connects, shattering the stone fists and probably breaking some of my fingers. My left middle finger hurts like a bitch especially.

Another electromagnetic pulse pushes the both of us back, causing me to slam into the ground next to Colossus. My head slams into the ground and makes my vision swim. Turning my head to my left I see Colossus waking up. "How are we doing?" He asks. Thanks to slamming my head down I can barely hear it.

I look back up at the roof. "Not so good," I think I say, I'm not really sure what I said.

My hearing and vision clears up, and the first thing I notice is the screaming.

Sitting up I see Magneto's arms out, aimed at Wolverine, some metal coming out of his arms.

Shit. Shit. SHIT!

While me and Colossus are down, Magneto lifts Wolverine up with one hand, his other forcing the adamantium out of his body. Wolverine roars in pain as the metal comes out of his flesh, tears all along his arms, his claws coming in and out repeatedly.

Quickly switching to my Magneto powers, I grab the adamantium around Wolverine and try to bring it back into him. It doesn't work. Well, kind of. Instead of more adamantium leaving his body it all stays around him, but I can't hold it, even if our power is equal, he's got more skill.

Dammit. I turn to Colossus. "Dude, I need your help!"

Colossus shakes his head and gets up, ready to run at Magneto to tackle him. Instead, the metal cage slams into Magneto, sending him flying into the opposite wall. Wolverine falls over, the adamantium splattering on the ground around him and on him.

Looking over to our right Colossus and I notice Forge, Professor X, and Polaris coming towards us, Polaris' fists glowing green as she keeps Magneto pinned with the cage. "I can't hold him for long."

"Colossus, help her keep him down," I order. "Forge, Professor, think you can help me with Wolverine?"

Colossus gets up and runs towards the cage, transforming into his metal form and keeping it pinned down with Polaris' assistance. Forge and the Professor come next to me as we stand around an unconscious Wolverine. With his cybernetic arm, Forge scans him. "Good thing you reacted when you did. Magneto was only able to take out about fifteen percent of the adamantium in his body."

"If it was such a minuscule amount why'd it look like it hurt so bad?" I ask.

The circle on Forge's palm glows as it vacuums the adamantium up, a hard-light tube keeping it all in place. "Imagine if fifteen percent of your bone structure was forcefully pulled out of you. Wouldn't be so fun now, would it?" He then pats my head with his normal arm. "Thanks for the save, by the way."

"Yes, thank you," the Professor says. He places his palm on Wolverine's head and does a mental scan. "Hm, his mind has undergone intense trauma, he may not wake up for quite some time."

"Seriously?" Forge asks incredulously. "I mean, even with his metal skeleton he'd be pretty valuable for this fight."

As I look down at Wolverine's still injured body a thought comes to mind. Oh, please don't bite me in the ass.

"I have an idea," I announce.

Forge and the Professor look at me. "What is it, Mimic?" The Professor asks.

"I think I can get the adamantium back in him."

"How?" Forge wonders. "You'd need some equipment not found here to even get started. And who knows how long we'd even need to get the procedure done-"

The Professor raises his hand, silencing any further input from Forge. "What is your plan exactly, Nolan?"

"Simple: do the reverse of what Magneto did. He forcibly pulled it out, so I'll put it back in," I answer. "But yeah, it'll take some time, I'm not as skilled as him but I'm just as powerful."

The sound of metal grinding catches our attention. Looking over we see Magneto forcing the cage to explode outwards, sending Colossus flying away. After a moment Magneto floats upwards, studying all of us before his gaze lands on Polaris. She fidgets a little before standing her ground, glaring up at her father. "I won't let you do this," she states.

Magneto's blank look flashes into one of hurt before hardening in rage. He turns to glare at Wolverine, Forge, the Professor, and I. "You turned my daughter against me," the cage is morphed into another multitude of spikes. "You will regret that."

Reacting quickly, Forge creates a hard-light shield that protects us from the spikes. "Alright! Whatever your plan is here!" He tosses the tube of adamantium towards me. "I'll help deal with Magneto!"

"What about your arm and leg?" I ask.

"Don't worry, they aren't magnetic!" Forge reassures.

With that, Forge goes to help Colossus and Polaris hold back Magneto, leaving me and the Professor to help Wolverine.

"What is it you want me to do?" The Professor asks.

"When Wolverine takes enough damage his healing factor goes into overdrive. He also enters a berserker rage, going after anyone in his sight," I explain. "When he wakes up, I'll try to protect him from Magneto's magnetic attacks, hell, Polaris might too, making him immune to Magneto's magnetism. After all that me and you can fix his mind. That sound good?"

The Professor has a proud smile on his face. "Yes. Yes, it does. Well, let us begin."

I take a deep breath as I magnetically lift the adamantium out of the container, floating it towards Wolverine's open wounds along his arms. But once the adamantium touches the wounds I feel a barrier, as if I can't go any further. What the hell? I push more, but all it does is squeeze the adamantium along his arms.

I purse my lips as I try again. Same result.

Goddammit, what the hell am I doing wrong?

I grit my teeth as I try to seep the adamantium in through the wounds, putting the metal directly on his bones. And third time's _not_ the charm.

"Nolan," the Professor says.

I bring the adamantium out and keep it floating over Wolverine's arms as I look at the Professor. After some calming breaths I reply, "yeah?"

"You need to focus."

"Oh, well, thanks. As if I weren't already," I mutter angrily. I try to fuse the adamantium with Wolverine's skeleton again, but it fails for a fourth time, further frustrating me.

Doesn't help that I can see Colossus, Forge, and Polaris struggling to keep Magneto pinned down.

While most of his attention is aimed towards Polaris, Magneto's still capable of keeping the other two occupied. Forge goes for potshots or creates little bombs, but Magneto's electromagnetic shield keeps him safe. And Colossus can't do much in his normal form, what with Magneto keeping him on the defensive with magnetic weapons.

"Nolan," the Professor says again. "Don't focus on them, focus on this. On your mission."

"Kind of hard to focus when an omega-level mutant is literally a few feet away from you kicking the asses of your friends, and when another one of your friends practically had a layer of his skeletal structure forcibly removed," I counter in anger.

"You're angry, good," the Professor says, sounding like a Sith lord. "You're halfway there."

I stop my seventh futile attempt and look at him. "What do you mean?"

He rolls up next to me, looking down at Wolverine. "I believe that true focus lies between rage and serenity. Would you mind if I…" he motions for a mental connection between the two of us. I nod, giving him access.

"_Nolan! Come here and greet our guests!" My Mom calls for me. _

_Getting up, a little five-year-old me walks downstairs to the living room, here I find three people waiting for us. A man and a woman around Mom and Dad's age and a little girl around my age. _

_She has shoulder length brown hair and expressive brown eyes. She has on blue jeans with the left knee has a tear on it, she's also wearing green sneakers. Her shirt is navy blue while the sleeves are light blue, there is a giant stylized cat's face of a light blue shade on the center of her shirt as well. And in her arms is a purple cat plushie. _

_Her dad lightly pushes her forward. "Well? Go introduce yourself."_

_The girl looks up at him before looking at me, a look of determination on her face. "Uh, hi! My name is Katherine Anne Pryde, but I prefer Kitty! What's your name?"_

_I'm taken aback by her energy a little bit, but I recover and rub the back of my head. "I-I'm Nolan Alexander Belmont," I look up at Dad, not sure what to say next. _

"_Why don't you show Kitty some of your toys, us adults are gonna talk about boring adult stuff," he says. _

"_Um…okay!" I turn to Kitty and take her hand. "Come on! I have so many cool toys to show you!"_

We exit the memory.

I look at my left hand, still feeling Kitty's hand in it. "That was when we first met," I whisper.

"A beautiful memory," the Professor compliments.

"Why did you show me that?" I ask, calmer than before. Hell, I think the last time I was this calm was on our way to Ireland.

"There is so much more to you than you know. More than your bloodline, you are your own person, with your own opinions. When you acknowledge this, I believe you will access a power no one, be they mutant or super-powered, will be able to match. Not me, not Jean," he looks at Magneto, bringing my gaze to him as well. "And certainly not Erik."

The Professor gives me one more nod before backing up.

With a deep breath I lift the adamantium up, over Wolverine's wounds, and refuse them with his bones, using my rage to complete the task, while keeping my serenity to stay on track. The sound of the battle fades away as I feel the metal connect with his bones. A giant smile breaks out on my face as I let out some loud laughter, something I don't think I've done in some time.

There's only a little bit of adamantium left. Good.

Wolverine's awake and his wounds have healed over completely. Not good.

He gets up and roars in anger as he swipes at me and the Professor. Using my powers, I force him at Magneto, and seeing what I'm doing, Polaris helps, allowing us to push Wolverine past Magneto's electromagnetic barrier.

I look to see that Wolverine's claws are fully covered in adamantium again, that's good. What about this adamantium? Maybe I could try and blind Magneto with it? If I find the right moment, I could totally harden it around his eyes, giving us the chance to take him down. Gah, he'll recover faster than I could blind him.

I snap my fingers and recoil in pain. Right, my left middle finger's hurting like a bitch. I quickly switch to my Wolverine powers, my finger healing.

…

Holy shit, Nolan Alexander Belmont you bloody genius.

Or bloody moron. Depends on who you ask.

Unsheathing my claws, I scratch up my arms, tearing at the flesh and revealing my bones. Using my willpower, I then stop the flesh from repairing itself.

During all of this the Professor rolls up next to me, his eyebrow arched in confusion, worry, and intrigue. "Mimic? What are you doing?"

"Gonna fuse this adamantium with my skeleton. It's gonna hurt."

"Wait, don't be so rash, Mimic. Look at Wolverine, with the amount of damage he is taking there will surely be an opening for you to fuse the rest of the adamantium with him. Don't do this to yourself," he reasons.

"Yeah, I'm looking at him, and you know what I see? A dude who's regenerating faster than I can deal with," I counter. "Besides, Professor, adamantium's a complicated metal, it takes a lot of thought to keep it liquid, if I let it just lie here until the end of the fight it might just harden. And I don't know if I have the skill to liquefy it again."

The Professor looks like he wants to argue, but my determined face says otherwise. He sighs deeply before I feel his presence in my mind. "I will keep you awake and calm," he looks at me with a worried face. "Are you sure about this, Nolan?"

"Nope."

I switch to my Magneto powers and try to ignore the pain. The adamantium is then grafted to the bones in my arms.

For the first few seconds I grit my teeth and shake violently as I try to keep the scream of pain in, but eventually I let it out. And it. Is. Loud. Really good thing I'm not using Banshee or Siryn's powers, otherwise I'd probably destroy Asteroid M.

Even with the memories of my friends and my family flashing through my mind the pain is still there, and it doesn't feel like it's going away soon.

Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!

I feel tears run down my face as I try to scratch the adamantium off of my bones, but thanks to the Professor my arms don't move. Then again, I don't know if I'm thankful for that, with my arms stock still I feel like I'm in more pain.

C'mon, c'mon, Nolan, keep calm.

It feels like it's eating my flesh. How the hell does Logan live with this? God, I don't know if I wanna live with this. Why am I so stupid? Did I really expect this to just be painless, to just…poof done?

After what feels like forever the pain decreases immensely. The bonding process complete. I fall over and lay down on my side as I bring my arms into me, looking straight at my bones to see them covered in adamantium. Gritting my teeth, I switch to my Wolverine powers, the pain subsiding greatly and the flesh repairing itself.

I slowly get up on my hands and knees and look down, my sweat and tears dropping. Come on, Nolan, you got this. I slam my right fist down as I slowly stagger up, nearly falling over. "If I _ever_ think of adding more adamantium to my skeleton please make me think I'm a chicken for a week, Professor."

The Professor breaths a sigh of relief before a smile plays on his face. "Done."

The asteroid shakes violently again, causing those of us on the ground to fall over. After getting up I help the Professor get back in his wheelchair. "You okay?" I ask.

"Yes," he looks outside the window, his eyes widening. "We need to leave. Fast."

My earpiece activates. _"Hey, guys," _Shadowcat begins. _"Hate to rush, but uh…we need to leave. Like _now._"_

"Dammit," I whisper. I activate my earpiece. "Kind of can't. Magneto's got us pinned here, Wolverine, Colossus, Polaris, and Forge are barely keeping him down. And I highly doubt he's just gonna let us escape, we have to take him out if we even want a chance of leaving."

"_If Forge and the Professor are safe just get over here,"_ Shadowcat tries to reason. _"Use your Quicksilver powers and get them all here."_

"Can't do that. I mean, maybe I could get Forge, Polaris, and the Professor there, but by the time I do the _Blackbird_ won't be able to leave. Doesn't help that Wolverine is deceptively heavy and Colossus is obviously heavy," I reply.

"_Wait,"_ Cyclops says. _"When they left, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver mentioned some escape pods near your position. Do you know what I'm talking about?"_

"Yeah. They're a floor below us," I reply. I see his plan. "You guys get out of here, once we take down Magneto, we'll take an escape pod and meet you on the surface."

"_No!"_ Shadowcat argues. _"We can't just leave them behind! I-I mean, our mission was to rescue the Professor and Forge! And now we're just gonna get outta here without them!?"_

"Kitty," I calmly reply. "We've got this, don't worry, okay? Look, after this, we'll go on a date, I'll pay. That make you feel better?"

She's silent for a moment. _"No. What will make me feel better is seeing you—all of you—back on the surface. See you in a bit."_

And with that, the commlink ends.

I take a deep breath and look to see the others keeping Magneto on the ropes. Good, looks like our numbers are getting to him. I go to help, but at my first step the Professor speaks up. "Mimic, quick fact: did you know magnets lose their charge when heated up to a certain degree?"

I smirk as I switch to my Human Torch abilities, I then flame on. "Huh, now I do. Look, Professor, you should head to the escape pods, we'll keep him distracted."

The Professor shakes his head. "No, I have a plan. Are you aware of Magneto's helmet? What it can do?"

I nod. "Yeah, block telepaths."

"Take the helmet off and then assist me in shutting down his mind. _Then_ we will go to the escape pods," he says. "Oh, and Mimic? Be sure to get the Crown. With it a mutant's powers are increased exponentially, I fear we may need it to stop, well, that," the Professor points to the outside of the windows, where the Earth is becoming more of the view.

"On it," and with that, I rush Magneto.

True enough, I pretty much burn through the electromagnetic shield, my fists colliding with Magneto's chest, thanks to my new adamantium infused bones and the heat, it warps the metal around my fists, sending him flying into the wall behind him. Polaris floats down slowly as the green electromagnetic energy around her fists flickers. "Think you can direct your heat towards him?"

I look at her with a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I'll try."

One of the swords from the wall comes at me, but thanks to the heat I give off the blade melts, the molten metal landing on the floor.

Forge looks at me as I keep Magneto pinned with a torrent of flame. "Hey, what was up with that screaming earlier? You okay?"

"Yeah…No, I'm not. But we can focus on that later, now we gotta get that damned helmet off of him," I reply. "I'll try to stop him from using his powers. Forge, Colossus, help Wolverine keep him busy. Polaris, you've got the helmet."

The two nod and run forward, helping a slowly calming Wolverine beat Magneto down. Polaris smirks as her fists glow again, her eyes as well. "The helmet's as good as gone."

With one more pulse Magneto pushes the three back, his eyes and fists glowing strongly. His eyes land on Polaris, the blades along the walls floating around him. "Lorna. My own daughter fighting against me. What would your Mother think?"

Polaris glares at him, the ground around her tearing apart and becoming spikes around her. "I don't know _Father_, what would she think about her husband trying to commit genocide? Now, I may not remember her like you, Pietro, or Wanda does, but I do know she'd be very strongly against this. You spit on her memory."

During all of this I sneak by and grab the crown.

Magneto grits his teeth in anger as the blades move around dangerously, some of them sparking against each other. "I will make sure to _discipline_ you after this is all done," he activates something on his left gauntlet. "Pietro, Wanda, to me."

As soon as he finishes, he looks to the doors to the room, waiting for them to arrive. After a moment he looks at us. "What did you do to them?"

"Oh, you know, just made them see the error of their ways," I nonchalantly reply. "They took an escape pod and got outta here. You're the only one left."

Behind him I notice a thick metallic wire floating behind his helmet, ready to snatch it at any moment.

"Erik."

Looking back, we all see Professor X looking up at Magneto, a stern look on his face. "Just give up. You are defeated. You have no chance in defeating all of us, your people are defeated, you are alone. Look outside, man! Just surrender, or else we will all die."

I deactivate my flames and switch to my Marvel Girl powers, slowly putting on the Crown. "NOW, POLARIS!" I shout just before Magneto can reply.

The second the helmet is removed the Professor and I enter Magneto's mind, ceasing any movement from him and forcing him to float down. Not taking any chances, the Professor and I go for the immediate shut down. Honestly, his natural mental defenses are stronger than I expected, but thanks to the Crown I break through them as if they weren't there.

Magneto falls over.

Well, we won.

"Uh, guys! Wolverine's still kinda losing it!" Forge shouts.

Oh, right.

The Professor and I look at Wolverine and fix his mind, this time much easier thanks to the help of the Professor and the Crown. Wolverine shakes his head before looking around. "We won?"

I nod. "We won," the asteroid shakes violently again. "But if we wanna celebrate that victory we should get outta here."

Using my telekinesis, I lift Magneto as we run out of the Throne Room, running past Mastermind's unconscious form. As he runs by, Colossus—in his metal form—scoops Mastermind up. Our group runs, and rolls, into the elevator, Polaris and I slamming face first into the opposite wall of the elevator. At least Bobby isn't here to make fun of us.

Even by going down one floor the elevator ride feels like forever, the elevator music doesn't help.

Eventually the doors open and we run, or roll, out of the elevator and skid to a stop in front of one of the escape pods. Forge quickly gets to work and opens the pod. "Come on, come on!"

We enter the escape pod, Polaris in the pilot's seat and Forge in the co-pilot's seat. After some button presses, we feel the escape pod shoot from Asteroid M. A few seconds of silence later we all let out sighs of relief, pretty sure our heart rates have all gone back to normal levels.

I switch to my Thunderbird powers stretch my legs. "Worst. Birthday. Ever."

Polaris looks at me from her seat. "Oh, uh, happy birthday?"

I shrug as I look at the moon. "Th-"

What the fuck nugget?

I get up and lean on Forge and Polaris' seats.

"What's up?" Forge asks.

I point at the moon. "Polaris, can these things zoom in?"

"Yeah?" Polaris replies. She presses some buttons on the console, the window shows a screen of a zoomed in portion of the moon, showing the others what I see.

"Whoa," Forge and Polaris say at the same time.

"The hell?" Wolverine whispers.

"That is…something," Colossus says.

The Professor just hums.

On the moon we find two individuals looking at us.

The man is tall, he looks strong as well. He wears black and silver armor. The boots are mainly black, where they connect with the pants of his suit is silver, stylized to look like a V, he also has a silver belt that separates the top and bottom half of his armor. The center of the belt has a diamond on it, on either side of it are zig zagging lines that go up to his silver shoulders. He has silver wings under his arms, probably connected to his armor. His cowl's interesting though, it's mainly black, but what's interesting about it is the silver tuning fork on the forehead, it's glowing with some blue-black energy, like his eyes.

The…person next to him is much more interesting, honestly.

Well, not really person in a human sense but more a giant ass brown bulldog with a similar tuning fork on its head, glowing with a similar energy.

After a moment, the dog's eyes, and tuning fork, glow blue, and then they're both gone.

We all stare forward, blinking at…I don't know, that.

I sit back down, leaning my seat back. "My life's been crazier in the past year than the previous thirteen."

"These have been an interesting… few months, to say the least," Colossus agrees.

"Uh, guys?" Forge calls out. He points at Asteroid M, falling down really fast. "If that impacts things aren't gonna go so well."

I really should've seen that one coming.

"Plan," I call out. "Wolverine, take the co-pilot's seat. Polaris, me and you are gonna try and slow that thing down, make sure the impact at least doesn't cause an extinction level event."

Polaris stands next to me as we watch the asteroid fall down. "A-are you sure we can do it?"

I nod as I give her the Crown. "Yeah, we can. Use the crown, you have more skills with these powers than I do."

Polaris takes off her headpiece and puts on the Crown. "Okay, let's do it."

The two of us reach out and feel the almost pure metal makeup of Asteroid M. Okay, now we just gotta fight gravity and its size. Fun. Taking deep breaths, the two of us increase our power output, slowing down the asteroid greatly, but not enough.

I grit my teeth in anger as I feel my feet drag across the ground, Polaris does as well, but at a slower rate. Looks like the size of the asteroid is dragging us towards it. With another burst of energy Polaris and I pull the asteroid. Dammit, my arms are starting to feel like shit.

"Remember, Nolan," the Professor says. "The point between rage and serenity."

Even though the message was aimed towards me, Polaris and I take deep breaths as we pull at Asteroid M, slowing it down. I ignore the feeling of blood dripping down my nose as I keep trying to pull the asteroid back. It's definitely slower than it was before, if it hits at least it'll only wipe out some of the world. Bright side, you know?

Suddenly, the weight of the asteroid is much lighter. Looking around my gaze lands on Magneto, standing up and helping us hold Asteroid M back. Colossus and Wolverine get up, ready to fight at any moment.

"Yes, knock me out, Mimic and my daughter can definitely stop Asteroid M without my assistance," Magneto sarcastically remarks.

The Professor raises an arm, telling the two to stand down. "Why help now, Erik? Asteroid M falls, humans are dead. You win."

"Asteroid M falls, humans _and _mutants are dead. Earth becomes a barren wasteland. We all lose," he answers. "Lorna, give me the Crown."

"Don't do it, Mint Leaf," Wolverine warns. "Who knows what'll happen when you stop the asteroid."

Magneto growls as he turns to Wolverine. "I promise to surrender to the authorities after. Do you feel better now?"

My head explodes in pain, even with Magneto's help the strain of slowing Asteroid M still hurts.

"Do it, Lorna," the Professor says. "If I know Erik, he's a man of his word."

I would question that but stopping an asteroid from colliding with the Earth is kinda more important.

Taking a deep breath, Polaris slowly reaches for the Crown and takes it off, dropping it and yelping in pain as the power enhancement of the Crown goes away. Forge reaches down and gives Magneto the Crown. Immediately, the weight of the asteroid lightens immensely. Oh, that's pretty good, actually.

The weight lightens even more. I don't think there's anyone else here capable of helping. What's up?

"Scan the other side of Asteroid M," Magneto says.

Using my powers, I scan the metal around the asteroid that isn't from it. Okay, I can sense a whole bunch of metal men, most around the same shape and size, some bigger than others. I also sense something weird, almost…mystical.

Eventually, the pod enters the atmosphere, close behind the asteroid as it nears the Indian Ocean slowly, definitely doesn't have enough momentum to destroy even India. Nice. From the other side of the asteroid we notice a whole bunch of Iron Man armors flying away, Thor with them.

The asteroid splashes into the Indian Ocean, a giant splash of water coming from the "landing". All around the asteroid we see a whole bunch of ships and jets, the rest of the team, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and SHIELD agents around it.

Magneto takes off the Crown and hands it to me. "I am a man of my word," with that, he sits down in the back and just closes his eyes, thinking about whatever.

Forge and Wolverine land the pod next to one of the ships, this one having our team mates on it. "Alright," the former begins. "Let's go."

Wolverine opens the door to the pod. I take a deep breath as I float out of it, looking up and waving at the others. "Yo! We ain't dead."

Marvel Girl laughs lightly. "No, you aren't."

I float up onto the deck of the ship and I'm wrapped in a tight hug, courtesy of Shadowcat. "Don't ever do that again."

I smile as I hug her back. "There's a lot of things I don't ever want to do again," oh, the pod. Using my magnetic powers, I lift the pod up onto the deck.

After some near drops, I…gently place it down on the deck. Forge rolls out of the pod and slowly gets up, rubbing his head. "Warn us next time, yeah?"

Despite her injuries, Storm rushes forward and hugs Forge as well, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Forge smiles but groans in pain. "Please lighten up, my ribs hurt."

Storm chuckles. "No."

Slowly, the others get out, Cyclops and Beast walking towards the Professor as he gets out of the pod. Before they can speak Magneto walks out, causing everyone to stand on edge, ready to attack at a moment's notice.

The Professor raises his hand. "He's surrendered. Don't worry," from behind a contingency of SHIELD agents along side _the_ Captain America and Iron Man walk towards us.

A man with brown hair, white at the temples, and an eyepatch walks in front of the SHIELD agents. "Erik Lehnsherr, otherwise known as Magneto. Boys, arrest him."

Two of the SHIELD agents walk forward, one with power dampening handcuffs and the other with a power dampening collar. They latch them onto Magneto and grab either arm, pulling him back towards a prison ship. During that, Polaris averts her gaze downwards, Havok places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Right," the SHIELD leader begins. "So, which one of you took 'im down?"

Professor X rolls in front of us. "Polaris, Mimic, Wolverine, Colossus, and Forge. X-Men, this is Nick Fury, the leader of SHIELD," he answers.

"Nice to meet you," I begin, shaking his hand. "Oh, Mastermind's in the pod also."

Nick Fury nods as two more of his men do the same to Mastermind. He then turns back to us. "We weren't able to capture 'em all, sadly," he then looks at Havok and Polaris with his one good eye. "But I can arrest two more."

The two glare at him, their arms tightening around each other. Cyclops stands in front of them and glares at Fury as well. "That's not happening."

Fury sighs as he shakes his head. "Kid, they were more than willing to help wipe out humanity, they gotta be punished for it."

"They fought with us in the end!" Forge argues. "Hell, if it weren't for Polaris, you'd all be dead right now."

"Fury," Captain America speaks up, interrupting the SHIELD leader. "He's right, if it weren't for…Polaris?" Said girl nods mutely. "Polaris. We wouldn't be here. Give them the benefit of the doubt."

Forge's eyes widen. "Holy shit, Captain America agreed with me. I can die happy now."

"And he acknowledged me. Same here," Polaris whispers.

Fury growls as he looks at Captain America. "What would you have me do? I can't just let 'em walk free. I mean, yeah, they helped us in the end, but they still helped him first."

"What about a sort of probation?" Shadowcat says, catching our attention. "They want to join the X-Men, which they will, but maybe they can write a status report, keep you in the loop. What do you say?"

Fury hums as he rubs his chin. After a moment he snaps his fingers. "Bi-weekly reports for a year. If they can't then Professor Xavier will have to write one."

The two and Cyclops let out sighs of relief as Professor X rolls up to Fury, shaking his hand. "Done."

"Sir!"

Looking over, we see one of the SHIELD agents waving him down. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure! You should come and see this!"

Fury nods as a boat comes up next to the ship we're on. Before he jumps over the railing he looks at the Crown in my hands. "What's that?"

"It's-"

Wolverine comes forward and grabs the Crown. He looks Fury in the eye as he snaps it in half. He then snaps those halves into more halves. "It's broken."

Fury's eye just narrows before he jumps down, his little speed boat heading towards the anomaly.

Now that he's gone, Iron Man and Captain America walk closer towards us. _"We'll check this place out. You guys should go home and patch yourselves up,"_ Iron Man says.

"But we can help," Polaris argues.

Iron Man raises his hand in surrender. _"Hey, I don't doubt it. But you guys look like you've been through enough these past two days. You did the heavy work, let us do the clean-up."_

"And maybe some of you could pick up the students at Avengers Mansion? They've been…an interesting bunch to deal with," Captain America says with a sheepish smile.

Iron Man laughs. _"The kids won't leave him alone. Hell, some of them won't leave Hulk alone. But I think the big guy enjoys their company."_

The Professor nods as he gives them a smile of thanks. "Of course. Come, my X-Men, the sooner we return home, the sooner we can rest."

With that, we head towards the _Blackbird_. On the way there Iceman and I wave as Human Torch gives us a quick salute.

Hoping in the jet, we see Psylocke and Angel waiting for us. The latter turns around, his face covered in soot. "We ready?"

Cyclops, being the last one to put on his seatbelt, leans back in his seat. "Yeah, we ready."

The _Blackbird_ lifts into the air, after some more button pressing, we head home to New York, to rest at the school.

Thanks to me and Shadowcat sitting in the back I can lean my seat all the way back without the seat resting on someone's legs. "I'm going to sleep," I announce.

Shadowcat smiles as she sweeps some of my hair aside. "I'll wake you when we get there."

With a smile, I go to sleep.

* * *

After some gentle shaking I open my eyes to see Kitty leaning over me. "Hey," she says. "We're here."

My seat straightens up as the _Blackbird_ lowers down into the hangar. As it lowers Havok and Polaris look at the now repaired school. "When did you guys repair the place?" He asks.

"When we came back Jean, Nolan, and some of the students rebuilt the school," Scott explains.

Havok rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Right, uh, sorry about that."

Lorna taps her fingers together. "Yeah, I should be sorry too, a lot of the damage was my fault."

Jean just waves off their concern. "Eh, no one was permanently hurt. No harm, no foul."

The _Blackbird _lands, and we all get out of the jet, some of us helping the others as we walk out. Professor Xavier sighs as he looks around with a smile. He then turns around and looks at all of us with a proud look. "You all did admirably," he looks at the new recruits. "Especially all of you recruits, your first mission and you've saved the world, stopped the Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy, and successfully rescued me and Forge. I couldn't be prouder."

Scott nods as he looks over all of us. "The Professor's right. We couldn't have done this without you guys, thank you. Now, all we gotta do is get the students back and continue with our lives. But, uh…some of us will have to stay back. Injuries, you know?"

"My head _really_ hurts," Jubilee says from her position on Shiro's back. "I wanna lay down."

Professor Xavier chuckles as he heads towards the elevator, the rest of us following. "Right. Jean, Hank, Warren, Nolan, Logan, Forge, and Lorna. Could you gather the students?"

The seven of us nod as the elevator doors open. We all separate and head towards the locker room, changing out of our suits. Before I change, I help Nightcrawler take off the top part of his suit, he flinches as the suit moves over his wound. "Sorry about that," I say.

"It's okay," he replies. "So, did you run into anyone else up zere?"

"What do you mean?" Kitty asks, coming around the corner wearing white sneakers, black sweatpants, and a solid red short-sleeved shirt.

"Any other members of ze Brotherhood," he elaborates. "Like…Mystique?"

Kitty and I quickly share a glance, our eyes wide. I look back at him as I grab a shirt for him to wear, a black shirt with a white circle in the center. "Uh…yeah. We actually ran into her and Destiny like right after I beat B-Mimic," I reply.

"Vas zere a fight?" He asks.

What do I say now? I mean, we _have _to tell him about his relationship with Mystique at some point, but is now really the best time?

"No," Kitty says. She then sighs deeply and messes with her ponytail. "Kurt, there's something we gotta tell you. But later, right now you need the rest, alright?"

Kurt looks at her with an arched brow before nodding. "Okay…? I'm going to sleep, see you two later."

With one of my clones, Kurt heads out of the locker room. Once he's gone Kitty and I look at each other. "This is gonna be a bitch to explain," I mutter.

Kitty nods as she gently puts her other hand over her wound and sits down. "You got that right. So, some of the students are at your house, huh? You gonna stay there for the weekend?"

I sit down next to her, letting her rest her head on my shoulder. "Yeah, probably. Besides, there's something I've been meaning to ask my Dad for some time now," I sigh as I pull out my phone, November 12th, and it's pretty late at night. "The day's still ahead of us. Come with, my parents will definitely want to see you again."

Kitty looks to think it over before nodding and getting up. "Okay, I'm down. Just let me get a sling for my arm, okay?"

"Okay," I reply.

Kitty smiles before leaning down and kissing my cheek. She then exits the locker room, letting me focus on changing out of my suit and putting on other clothes.

After that's done, I head to the garage, running into Warren on the way. "Nolan, hey!" He comes over and lightly punches me on the shoulder. "Nice job with Magneto!" He compliments.

"Heh, thanks, man. Hey, what happened to you? I mean, you aren't as beat up as the others," I reply.

"Oh, Pyro's flames were a little to intense for me. Doesn't help that one of the Brotherhood's jets dropped nearby, distracting me, and clipping one of my wings," Warren explains. He opens the door to the garage where we find the others waiting. "Hey you guys. So, who's going where?"

Hank pulls out his phone. "Jean and Lorna will be gathering the students at this location," he sends a message to Jean's phone. "Warren and I will be heading to Avenger's Mansion. Forge will gather the students at the Baxter Building. Logan and Nolan will get the students at Nolan's home."

Logan sniffs the air. "Incoming."

Kitty phases her head through the door and looks around, her gaze then lands on us and she walks through the door, her arm in a sling. "Hey, I was wondering if I can come with?"

"Shouldn't you be resting?" Jean asks. "I mean, you took a pretty nasty hit to your arm up there, I don't want you to do anything that could aggravate your arm."

"It's fine. Besides, it's only my arm-"

"Come on, kid," Logan interrupts. He notices the looks the others are giving him. "She isn't gonna take no for an answer, may as well bypass the argument."

"And you're just bringing her along?" Forge questions.

"She's only coming along 'cause she's Shifty's girlfriend, nothing more," Logan answers.

Kitty gives him a deadpan stare. "Glad to see that's the only reason," she mutters as she walks towards the car, phasing through it.

Logan just groans as he hops into the driver's seat. "Get in, Shifty!"

I shrug before sitting in shotgun, just in front of Kitty. The car moves out of the garage, the other three cars behind us. As we drive Logan's silent, which leads to me and Kitty being silent, creating a rather awkward atmosphere. I notice Logan looking at me from the corner of his eye, his gaze then shifts to Kitty before he looks forward. What was that about?

Kitty's head appears between ours; she turns to look at Logan. "So, where are we heading?"

"Look who's in shotgun."

Kitty turns to look at me and nods. "Got it," she looks back at the multitude of seats. "How many kids are at your house anyways, Nol?"

"Like, ten? Maybe eleven?" I answer. "One of them either has a twin or they can clone. I'm not sure."

"Clones," Logan answers.

"Right, clones," I echo. I yawn loudly as my energy almost plummets at that moment. "I'm clocking out again. Wake me when we get there."

I don't wait to hear a reply, I just close my eyes and rest.

* * *

"We're here," Logan's voice calls out.

Opening my eyes and groggily getting up I see my house outside the windshield. Through the windows I can see some lights going off, and I don't think they're from any televisions.

As we get out Kitty looks through the windows as well. "Think we asked too much of your parents?"

I shake my head. "Nah, they totally handled those kids."

Logan walks forward and knocks on the door, the lights instantly stopping. After waiting for a minute, the door opens. Mom looks at Logan before her gaze sweeps over Kitty and then lands on me. "Nolan!" She runs by Logan and wraps me in a tight hug. "How are you, baby?"

I blush in slight embarrassment but reciprocate the hug. "I'm fine, Mom. Hope things weren't too crazy for you."

Mom backs up, her hands still on my shoulders as she leads me towards the door. "Eh, nothing I couldn't handle," she then finally notices Logan and Kitty. "Oh, sorry about that. My name's Julie Belmont, what are yours?"

Logan, for once, looks unsure of himself. "Um, uh…Logan, ma'am."

Gonna ask him what that was about later.

Kitty smiles brightly. "Oh, well, you already know me."

Mom looks at her with an arched brow. She tilts her head as she thinks. "Hm, okay, I'll play your game," she taps her finger on her lower lip as she walks around Kitty. "Brown hair and eyes, a little shorter than Nolan and around his age," her eyes widen before a wide smile breaks out on her face. "Kitty!?"

"Hey Mrs. Belmont," Kitty says with her own smile.

The two hug each other. Mom then backs up, one arm around Kitty's shoulders and the other around mine. "Well, you've grown up, haven't you? Come on! Let's talk inside, Cayde probably needs help."

We go inside, and surprisingly enough, Dad doesn't need help. The students are moving around the house, gathering their things. The younger ones sitting in the living room watching TV as the older ones help the other students get their stuff. The kids all turn around and run around Logan once they notice us.

It's faint, but there's a smile on Logan's face. "Alright, alright, we won, yeah. Look, if you want the full story get in the car and wait, I'll be sure to tell you what happened."

The kids shout in excitement before running out to the car. I make some clones that go out with them to help. Some more clones go up to help the older kids get their stuff. As this is happening Dad whistles. "Damn, how many powers did you get over the year?"

"A lot, Dad," I then walk forward and the two of us hug each other. "I'm gonna stay for a bit, by the way."

Dad nods. "Right, of course. Don't worry, we made sure none of them came into your room," he then looks at Logan and Kitty. "Who are your friends?"

"This is Logan, also known as the Wolverine and this is Kitty," I notice his slightly widened eyes. "Yup, that Kitty."

Dad's gaze lands on her. Kitty waves as she smiles. "Hello."

"Hello to you too. How're your parents?" Dad asks.

"Oh, they're good, thanks for asking, Mr. Belmont," Kitty answers.

As the last of the students leaves Logan coughs before pointing his thumb towards the door. "We really just came to get the kids back. Kitty and I will go back to the school. Thanks for keeping an eye on them, we—I—appreciate it," Logan manages out. He then walks towards the door, exiting the house.

Kitty and I share a glance. That was rather…nice of Logan. Weird.

Kitty scratches the back of her head. "Yeah, I should go, the three of you have a lot of catching up to do. See you later!"

"Oh, Kitty!" Mom calls out. "We're gonna celebrate Nolan's birthday tomorrow, please tell the X-Men, alright?"

Kitty nods with a smile. "You can count on it, Mrs. Belmont. It was nice seeing you guys again, bye!"

After the door closes the three of us walk towards the island in the kitchen, standing around it. Looking up, I notice Dad's smirk as he looks at me. "What?" I ask.

"You and Kitty seemed pretty…close," he says. Oh, that's what. "Something you wanna tell us?"

I let out a deep breath as a large smile breaks out on my face. That's all they need. Mom claps before wrapping me up in another hug, wiping away fake tears. "Oh, my little man, growing up so fast. Next thing you know, I'll become a grandmother."

I blush furiously as I switch to my Shadowcat powers and phase through her arms. "Okay! Thinking ahead, aren't ya?" I say. I then sober up as I look at the two, their smiles dropping as well. "I'm staying for a couple of reasons: One, I'm pretty damn tired. Two, I knew you guys would want to celebrate my birthday ASAP, may as well stay now. But three," I point at Dad. "Your last name, what is it?"

Dad sighs deeply as he goes to the table, sitting at one side. Mom leads me to the other side, the two of us sitting down next to each other, me across from Dad. He takes a deep sigh before looking me in the eyes. "It's a long story. You sure you don't want me to tell you tomorrow morning? You've been through a lot today."

I shake my head no.

Dad gulps as he scratches the back of his head. "Okay, right off the bat, my name was Cayde Frost."

Frost, huh? So, I'd technically be Nolan Frost.

He sighs deeply. "Okay, how do I begin this? Right, so, I come from an old money family from Boston, Massachusetts. The second wealthiest family, actually," he begins. "I have an older brother, Winston. God, he was an asshole. While I was physically superior, he was smarter than me, and he'd be sure to rub it in any chance he could. My parents did jack-shit to help. Hell, because of them I promised to be nothing like them."

"Well, you aren't," I say.

Dad smiles. "Anyway, there was this get together, all the wealthiest families of Massachusetts would get together and do one percenter things. Putting it bluntly: it was a collection of assholes. I wasn't invited, I was seen as "too crude". So, me and some friends partied hard nearby, some of them were wasted, I had a little buzz, so I remember everything that happened that day."

He pauses to take a deep breath. Dad looks down at the table, his gaze blank as he's lost in his memories.

"Cayde?" Mom asks, reaching out and taking his hand.

That shakes him out of his memories as he gives her a smile. "Sorry. So, me and my friends were being delinquents nearby. Like, if you were to look out the window, you'd notice us messing with public property. And would you look at that, Winston noticed. He called us out, causing everyone at the party to watch us, someone pointing me out specifically. Mom and Dad came downstairs, furious, they left the party, dragging me, Winston, and Hazel along."

"Who's Hazel?" I ask.

Dad purses his lips; Mom rubs his hand in comfort. "She's Winston's wife. She'll be important later."

Dad's gaze lowers, not looking at either of us. Again, Mom finds a way to be his rock. "Honey, it's no problem. Really."

What? What's she talking about?

"The thing is, Winston wasn't just a dick to me, he was a dick to his wife as well, barely paying attention to her, their daughter, or their son, during the entire month, fully focused on the party. She wasn't happy about that. But, to the main story. After arriving home my parents were furious, screaming at me about tainting the family name or whatever, I didn't care. But then they disowned me. _That_ caught my attention," Dad says. "So, a week passes and I'm in a hotel, wondering what my next move would be, and during that wait Hazel came to my hotel room, crying. I don't remember what Winston did, but it was bad enough to lead to the two of us sleeping together as a way to spite him."

I narrow my eyes as I look at Dad. He scratches the back of his head, messing with his blond hair. Why is he…? Oh.

"When was this?" I ask.

"Seven years before you were born. Two years before I met your Mother," Dad answers.

"I have an older half-sibling, don't I?" I say, catching them by surprise. "I mean, you wouldn't mention this unless it was important."

Dad chuckles. "You definitely got the smarts from your Mom. Yeah, you have a sister, I didn't know about her until years later when Hazel sent a message to me a week after your first birthday."

He falls silent again as a pained look crosses over his face. He's probably thinking about all the time he could've had with her. I lean forward, resting my arms on the table. "What's her name?" I ask.

"Emma Frost."

Emma Frost.

I have an older half-sister.

I don't know how to take that.

Dad gets up from his seat with another sigh. "That's all I know about her, Hazel only sent a picture with her birthdate and name on the back," he runs his hand over his hair. "I'll show you tomorrow. I'm tired."

Dad goes upstairs, leaving me and Mom in the kitchen.

"I keep telling him that I don't care he has a child with another woman, but he just keeps beating himself up over it," Mom says. "It's like he thought he cheated on me, but she was born before he and I even met. Honestly, I would _love_ to meet Emma, see what she's like, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"You want anything to eat?" Mom asks.

I shake my head. "No, I'm good. Thanks, Mom, but I'm gonna go to sleep," I hug her. "I love you."

Mom messes with my hair as she hugs me back. "I love you too. Good night, baby."

I go upstairs, I pause as I walk by Mom and Dad's room. Damn, I have a sister, I hope I get to meet her at some point.

I continue walking and enter my room. Sure enough, it looks to be relatively untouched. Laying down in bed I look up at the roof of my room, some of the glow-in-the-dark stars from my childhood still up.

My eyelids become heavy as I roll over, staring at the wall next to my bed. A smile breaks out on my face.

I have a sister.

**Brotherhood Arc, complete; Blue & Gold Arc, commence.**

* * *

**THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHAPTER I HAVE WRITTEN SO FAR!**

**So, this made me realize, chapters that end an arc are gonna be bigger than normal chapters since they have to end one arc and setup either the next arc or the future of the series. **

**Alright, let's talk about what happened in this chapter. And a lot happened. **

**Let's see, Wolverine nearly lost the adamantium in his body like in the storyline Fatal Attractions, which leads to Nolan getting some adamantium in his body. That was something I've had planned since Nolan got Wolverine's powers. Don't worry, it'll be explained upon more in the next arc. **

**And during that part Xavier gave Nolan the Rage and Serenity speech. **_**First Class**_** is one of my favorite X-Men films, and that speech was just so damn good that I had to bring it in somehow, and so I thought that would be the perfect moment. Helps that I was listening to that soundtrack when writing that part. ****Also, Fury's based off the original white one, the Samuel L. Jackson one will appear later.**

**Oh, and the escape from Asteroid M, Black Bolt and Lockjaw's cameos. That was an idea I've had since the beginning of writing this arc. Black Bolt's one of my favorite characters, and I wanted to find a way for him to appear before the X-Men vs Inhumans Arc. To explain: because of Asteroid M, Black Bolt went out to keep an eye on it, ready to take it down should it threaten Attilan. **

**And now to the biggest reveal, Cayde's last name. Ever since I realized Nolan had his mom's last name that idea came to mind. At first, I thought about making Cayde Sebastian Shaw's little brother, which would add to Nolan's fear of being inherently evil considering the fact that Shaw would be his uncle. And then I had the crazy idea of making Cayde Victor von Doom's little brother, but I didn't really know how to connect that to this story, so that was scrapped. But then I thought about making him a Frost, and the ideas just flew off from there. **

**The main thing that helped propel the idea was Emma's relationships with Jean and Kitty. From their first meetings things have always been antagonistic between Emma and the two, and then I thought "why not make Nolan a big part of why they're like that"? You see, Jean is like the older sister Nolan's never had, and now that he has an actual one it adds more to Jean's distrust of Emma. And for Kitty, well, Emma just doesn't think she's good enough for Nolan, it'll be more in depth as the story goes on. **

**Well, that's all from me. Now, like I said, with the end of the arc the story will be on hiatus for a moment as I plan out the next arc. So, please leave a constructive review and remember to stay awesome! See you next time!**


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